Formalizing infrastructures, civic networks and production of space: Bedouin informal settlements in Be'er-Sheva metropolis

With worldwide proliferation of impoverished informal settlements, scholars are paying increasing attention to related political struggles around issues of formalization and provision of social and physical infrastructures. By examining such struggles in informal Bedouin settlements in Be'er-Sheva metropolis, Israel, we contribute to this trend by explaining how complex trans-local civic networks become key agents in promoting such goals. We use Lefebvre's 'production of space' perspective as an outline to conceptualize the relations between interventions in perceived space (infrastructures), lived space (symbolic recognition) and conceived space (formalization) of informal spaces. As we show, the civic networks construct symbolism of suffering population and rights deprivations while establishing infrastructures as 'facts on the ground.' This research thus sheds new light on the way civic networks become increasingly prominent in the production of contemporary in/formal space.