Privatizing Collectivity: The Transformation of the Social and Spatial Forms of the Kibbutz

Abstract

The article studies the relation of spatial to social form by interrogating the privatization of the kibbutz in the last decades. In this privatization process, the kibbutz transformed from a socialist-collectivist settlement to a more familiar suburban-communal settlement. This structural transformation has been accompanied by a spatial reorganization, which has reached its nadir with the "parcellation" of plots-the privatization of homes. Rather than merely an administrative procedure, the privatization of homes is a radical process affecting the social, the economic, and the spatial structures of the settlement, exposing the spatial specificity of the new social forms. This article unfolds the social and spatial processes that have taken place, and deploys a spatial reading as a means of developing a critique of the ideology of the privatization plan.