מסה על הדרום: דרומית-מזרחית

Haviva Pedaya depicts the South as a geographic and cultural space, from a global and Israeli perspective, and traces the homologies that occur between the different registers of its appearance. Pedaya wonders how the South was constituted as a site of residue and waste and a place of refuge; as a naked space, devoid of history and writing, but infused with tradition and speech; as a site of social subjugation but also of action and creation. She intersects the South with the East and contrasts the rapid civilizatory movement on the East-West axis with the slow movement on the North-South axis. Instead of demanding that the South shake off the fantasies imposed on it, she seeks to examine it through them, namely through its cultural markers in movement, which also enable the South to speak for itself. This essay is part of a large, encompassing and intricate project, in which Pedaya is articulating a Southern-Eastern perspective of Israel.