Antagonistic Landscapes

This article introduces and develops the concept of “antagonistic landscapes” on the basis of fieldwork conducted in the Israeli settlement Efrat in the occupied West Bank and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem campus on Mount Scopus. The concept refers to the ways in which powerful actors antagonize “unwanted” communities by means of the physicality of the landscape. Both fieldwork sites, built on hills, use higher ground to tower over, yet overlook, the presence of “unwanted” Palestinian communities in the valleys below, thereby constituting prototypically antagonistic landscapes. That said, as expressions of utopian dreams, antagonistic landscapes require the erasure of what already exists. But, Palestinians continue to lay claim to the landscape. As a consequence then, these dreams remain utopian since by simply persisting and refusing to be entirely effaced the antagonized inscribe themselves into the fabric of the landscape. Antagonistic landscapes thus display both the dreams that the antagonizers hoped to realize, and the narratives of those whom they failed to replace.