A Home at the End of the World

Eritrean and Sudanese Asylum Seekers in Tel Aviv, Israel

Authors

  • David Clinton Wills New York University

Keywords:

Tel Aviv, Eritrea, Sudan, asylum seekers, infiltration

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which national culture intersects with urban environs to produce multinational subjectivity. Specifically, this paper shows the activity of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers in Tel Aviv, Israel, as particularly generative of the life world building of Southern Tel Aviv (known as Little Africa). Juxtaposing these spaces of urban life, this paper also looks at the Holot Detention Facility as a space of life as well, situating the asylum seeker along various, migratory paths towards citizenship. With the near-total recreation of African life, this paper examines the Neve Sha’anan neighborhood as supportive of the LGBT and migrant communities, evidencing the flourishing of national culture outside of traditional boundaries. Particularly, this paper looks at “The Prevention of Infiltration Law” to discuss ideas of “infiltrators” using frameworks from Foucault, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Jean-Luc Nancy and Achille Mbembe. Examining ideas of space, place, ethics, embodiment, law, the body, street art, border fences, architecture, and minimalism, this paper juxtaposes BLM (Black Lives Matter) and BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) from a transnational perspective of world-building, asking the question of where can one call a place, home.

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Author Biography

David Clinton Wills , New York University

David Clinton Wills holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Stony Brook University. He also holds a graduate certificate from the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University and a B.A. in Philosophy from Haverford College.

David Clinton Wills' research is engaged in exploring ethical, political, and social issues of identity, particularly in the context of gender performativity, racial discourse, and sexual politics, in a changing media landscape. His work focuses on how ideas of personhood, culture, and nation are articulated, represented, and shaped. He does this from an interdisciplinary framework built upon his education in critical theory, cultural studies, and philosophy.

David Clinton Wills has developed his work through grants from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and the Social Science Research Council. He joined New York University after teaching at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University and CUNY Queens College.

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Published

2017-12-01

How to Cite

Clinton Wills , D. . (2017). A Home at the End of the World: Eritrean and Sudanese Asylum Seekers in Tel Aviv, Israel. Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry, 3(2), 321–349. Retrieved from http://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/223

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 2 (2017): City, Space and Literature

Section

Opinion