Betwixt and between in Beer-Sheva: Consumption and chronotopes in the negev

Markowitz offers an ethnographic exploration of the lived and narrated practices of Beer-Shevans as they negotiate their everyday experiences. During the latter part of the twentieth century when Israelis in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were frequently confronted with suicide bombings, Beer-Shevans often joked that ‘we are just too insignificant’ for Palestinian militants to waste manpower and materials. But that complacency-in-the-periphery was shattered first in 2004 with a suicide attack and then in 2008 by the development of new long-range missiles in Gaza that reached Beer-Sheva. Ever since, the city and its surroundings have become part of the brutality that has always characterized the Middle East conflict. Told from the perspective of a researcher-citizen, this chapter will illustrate how Beer-Shevans have been adjusting their perceptions and practices of time and space as they go about their daily lives in a steady, yet fluctuating, state of in-betweenness, between peripherality and centrality and peace and war.