Segregating Infrastructure

Abstract

Walls, fences and barriers are essential components of ethnically divided cities, forming an integral part of contested areas and their landscape. Whether in Berlin, the US–Mexico border, Ceuta, Palestine or Korea, separation infrastructure constitutes a physical materialisation of political and ethnic conflicts, reproducing them through built space. In the case of Israel, one might immediately think of the West-Bank Separation Barrier, the Gaza Strip land obstacle, or the fences and entrance gates that decorate most of the Israeli settlements. Nevertheless, alongside these usual martial techniques, roads have been functioning as a complementary mechanism, which continues, enhances and serves the overt territorial land development policy. However, while the use of segregated bypass roads in the West-Bank creates parallel and ethnically segregated networks, inside official Israeli territory they function as the border itself, preventing integration while highlighting the spatial stratification which the local society is based upon.