Taming the road, tamed by the road: sense of road as place among Indigenous Bedouin in an ethnic frontier in Israel

Abstract

We propose the concept ‘sense of road as place’ for an Indigenous group within an ethnic frontier, specifically in the case of the Israeli Bedouin. A road in this spatial context carries far greater meanings than elsewhere, particularly when also impacted by power relationships with the state. We reveal how Road 31 was/is subjectified by the Bedouin as a place prior to and after an upgrade. Initially they were able, through their Indigenous spatiality, to tame the road into their informal mobility and make it a place, but following the upgrade their informal mobility has been tamed into formal state-regulated mobility, making the road a non-place.