Social Exclusion, Housing Environment and `Tolerant Planning'

The Case of the Jahelin Bedouin Tribe

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to critically analyze the inherent nexus between power relations, spatial exclusion and the role of the planner in planning processes of housing environments. The discourse of tolerance in relation to spatial planning highlights its socio-political dimensions and questions a whole set of power relations, since we must ask ourselves who should tolerate whom and why. This argument is theoretically based on a vast body of literature suggesting that the appropriation and use of space are political acts, and the kinds of spaces we have, do not have, or are denied access to, can empower us or render us powerless. Thus, the article challenges the theoretical debate vis a vis reality, by presenting a particular housing environment planning project for the Jahelin Bedouin community. The Jahelin Bedouin people were expelled from their land, which the Israeli authorities decided to use for a new neighborhood annexed to the Jewish settlement of Ma'aleh-Adumim. Following a long and complex legal struggle, 35 Jahelin families were compensated, creating a precedent whereby the Israeli State was forced to lease alternative state land to Palestinians. A professional team including a planner, a community organizer and an architect was hired by a human rights N. G. O. to work on a project of planning and building 35 housing units for the Jahelin families. This project, in an ongoing process as will be presented in this article, challenged the traditional role of the planning professionals, as well as the notion of "tolerance." As external professionals, the team had to examine its role critically, and to identify and support community interests through the development of a participatory and mutual process of planning.