Melancholic citizenship in the south Tel Aviv protest against global migration

Abstract

Combining anthropological analysis with the discipline of urban studies and the theory of melancholy, this article offers the concept of ‘melancholic citizenship’ to describe the emotion of sadness aroused among a discriminated group of citizens in light of a process that highlights their social marginality. The case study explored is the struggle of old-time Mizrahi (Jews who immigrated to Israel from Arab countries) residents of the Hatikva neighborhood – a lower income neighborhood of south Tel Aviv – against the inflow of African migration to the area. Based on anthropological field work I conducted in the neighborhood between the years 2010–2013, I argue that the struggle of the longstanding residents aroused melancholic feelings among them when they realized that the global migration is a current indication of their discrimination as lower income Mizrahim who inhabit the city periphery and are located at the margins of Israeli society.

Keywords:

• Melancholic citizenship
• right to the city
• global migration
• Mizrahim
• Tel Aviv
• Israel

Acknowledgment

I would like to sincerely thank Amalia Sa’ar for her valuable support and feedback throughout the research. I would also like to thank Carol Kidron, Michal Kravel-Tovi, Avihu Shoshana, Sibylle Lustenberger, Dalia Gavriely Nuri, the editors of Citizenship Studies and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I would also wish to thank Yoav Cohen for his careful editing and to Susan Schneider for her influental English writing tutoring. Finlay, I would deeply like to thank the long-term residents of the Hatikva neighborhood for allowing me to take part and document their lives.

Notes

1. Human rights organizations label the migrants from Sudan and Eritrea as ‘refugees’ (Plitim) or ‘asylum seekers’ (Mevakshei Miklat) and emphasize the danger they will face if they will be returned to their home countries. On the other hand, the residents of South Tel-Aviv and right-wing politicians label them as labor migrants or infiltrators, emphasizing their pragmatic reasons to migrate to Israel and the fact they entered the country illegally. In order to avoid taking a moral stand, I chose to use the most general term of migrants to describe the newcomers from Sudan and Eritrea. I also use the term ‘asylum seekers’ alternately because many of them indeed applied for asylum from the State of Israel and wish to obtain a formal status of refugees. By using these two terms I always mean the same social group of migrants from Sudan and Eritrea. Unlike labor migrants (Ovdim Zarim or Foreign Workers) who also reside in south Tel Aviv, the group I describe in this article is a homogeneous one, which includes mostly relatively young African males who due to state regulations encounter unemployment and even homelessness.

2. As the older residents were the most vulnerable in light of the neighborhood transformation: Due to the dominance of the African migrants they feared leaving home after dark; the feeling of melancholic citizenship I describe in this article is relevant to all three generations of Mizrahim residing in the neighborhood that I encountered during field work.

3. The age of the women who were interviewed for the research was: 74, 56, 37, 26. The men were: 77 and 25 years old.

4. 12 women took part in the focused group I conducted in a local center for the elderly. They were in their 70s and 80s.