Abstract
Abstract This article examines how social preferences, in the form of cultural politics, become concretised in land laws. In Israel, Bedouin Arabs in unrecognised villages and Jewish farmers of individual farmsteads each faced governmental eviction orders and responded by seeking recognition of their land-use practices as legal. However, whereas Jewish farmers successfully mobilised place-based identities to gain legalisation, Bedouin Arabs' dwelling practices were not recognised as the legitimate basis for land claims, and their attempts to assert place-based identities have been denied. Instead, Bedouin Arabs faced pressures of 'de-cultural accommodation' and continued evictions. Ethnographic comparison of these two cases of 'illegal' settlement demonstrates how cultural identities - as former nomads or pioneer farmers - matter for land claims.
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