| Abstract | This article develops an explanation for the fractured and partitioned landscape in Palestine by comparing it to the early modern enclosures in England, and framing this comparison within a theory of “territoriality.” Territoriality is a practice of power and refers to the efforts of individuals or groups to reorganize the economic life, politics, and culture of a place by reshaping landscape. The argument is that the Palestinian landscape is part of a long-standing narrative in which groups with power seek to transform the economy, demography, and culture of territorial space through the time-honored territorial practice of enclosing land. Enclosure consists of two basic instruments: a legal element that redefines rights of property by reorganizing systems of use, access, and socio-economic relations on the land; and architectural elements that reshape the landscape itself. English estate owners and Israeli Zionists are parallel actor groups using law and the built environment to remake life on the landscape. Mobilizing the institutional power of property law and the material power of the built environment, these groups reorder land ownership, use, and circulation on the landscape in an effort to consolidate systems of control over subalterns and reorganize socio-economic life and demography in a place. By exploring the contours of this pattern, this article seeks to uncover a more general meaning in the enclosure landscape of Palestine today.
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