Exposure to the majority social space and residential place identity among minorities: evidence from Arabs in Israel

ABSTRACT

Contemporary urban fabrics are characterized by ethnic diversity in which considerable portions of minority groups reside in ethnic enclaves. These groups are exposed to the majority populations to different extents in various arenas. The current study addresses the association between exposure to the majority and identification with the ethnic residential environment. It examines this question among Arabs in Israel, who live mostly in distinct ethnic localities constituting part of Israel’s metropolitan areas, and are a native minority subjected to social exclusion and political marginalization. The methodology incorporates quantitative (310 questionnaires) and qualitative (25 in-depth interviews) data. Core findings reveal that exposure to the Jewish majority reduces place identity overall, yet has complex effects on place identity formation. These findings indicate that quality-of-life in the locality, including infrastructure upkeep and opportunities to foster community, are more strongly related to place identity than overt political dimensions. These issues are discussed in the context of encounters with difference and segregation.

KEYWORDS:

• Place identity
• social exposure
• Arabs
• Israel
• encounters
• segregation

Notes

1. The status of the population studied is politically debatable, hence scholars (including Arabs) use different terms for this population. Some refer to them as Israeli-Arabs (Schnell, 1994); some Arabs in Israel/ Arab citizens of Israel (Amara & Schnell, 2004; Al-Haj, 2012) and some Palestinian-Arabs/ Palestinian citizens of Israel (Khattab & Miaari, 2013; Blatman-Thomas, 2017). We use 'Arabs' because in a series of studies conducted in different years and based on different independent samples (including the current one), their Arab identity was considered by them as the most important (Amara & Schnell, 2004; Schnell & Haj-Yahya, 2014; Hreman et al., 2019).

2. An area bordering on the West Bank, northeast of Tel Aviv which is one of the main Arab areas in Israel.

3. Higher education institutions are not segregated like the K-12 system in Israel. The bigger and more prestigious institutions are located in Jewish municipalities. Both Jews and Arab study there but they are predominantly Jewish. In addition, there are some smaller colleges in Arab localities, where all students are Arabs.