ABSTRACT
Chapter Four studies tours of south Tel Aviv, the former borderland between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, and current home of asylum seekers from Sudan and Eritrea. It begins by reviewing the official scripting of Tel Aviv’s urban identity and the gaps and fissures within it. It then highlights the interdependency between the marginalization of south Tel Aviv and the marginalization of African asylum seekers. Within this entanglement, the chapter shows how tour guides appeal to mundane infrastructure to illuminate a chronicle of urban neglect and the resistance of migratory communities to it. In parallel, it discusses how the subversive potential of these tours can be jeopardized by the neglect of indigenous histories, by commodification, and by elements of racial voyeurism.
