The Proceedings of Spaces of History / Histories of Space: Emerging Approaches to the Study of the Built Environment

Considering the unpredictability of the continuous Israeli military invasions for most of the Palestinian cities, this study takes the Old City of Nablus as a case study to shed light on the importance of everyday life. This paper is part of an ethnographic research on the interrelationship between people and their built environment under an extremely conflicted political situation, and the households’ everyday living experiences that present their resistance and “sense of place”. It attempts to discuss the responsiveness of the everyday of the Old City of Nablus and its urban fabric competence not only to the socio-economic needs, but also to the accelerated political struggle and resistance facing the continuous invasion and occupation by the Israeli military.

To reveal the silenced stories, the paper’s structure follows an ethnographic, exploratory, and analytical approach based on the researcher’s observations, interviews, photos, and available literature. This paper serves the research on people’s everyday life and urban public space in the city of Nablus, and continues researching the interrelationship between urban and social fabric and how it impacts the function and harmonization of public space, and “forbidden space” at certain times. Similarly, it documents and introduces Palestine as a case study that represents the everyday urbanism practices under the occupying Israeli military operations, to available theories for scholars who have discussed the everyday urbanism practices and tactics in different contexts. In this sense, history is incorporated in the phenomenon of this research case study as ongoing implication on both present living experience and space.