Paper short abstract:

The lecture will focus on the breakdown and blurring of the generation concept as it seen in Israel's 2011 summer protest. I will raise questions about the "Non- Generational" concept that reflects a temporary condition in a wondering space.

Paper long abstract:

"I start speaking with the kids here, they do not think differently from me, I felt they were not less experienced than me , I can have a conversation with anyone, literally anyone, like there is no age-wall between us" Yossi,50.

In this lecture I will examine the term of Generation as it seen in Israel's 2011 summer protest.

The official trigger for 2011 protest in Israel was the financial situation. Yet, the critical mass of the protest's participants weren't members of a social movement carrying an explicit, pre-dictated agenda, but rather independent and unorganized people hitting the streets. I will argue that the participant enabled them to dismantle and blur the categories of gender, ethnicity, and religion and create a safe space that allows participants to be unmarked or categorized.

The same protest, originally meant to warn against an imminent social threat, was instead used as a part of a personal quest for solutions. This is made possible by breaking down social categories.

The social protest's sphere enabled this quest, and became what I call "wondering space", where individuals paused to ask questions about their existence and their part in the social order.

This paper is based on ethnographic research conducted during the summer protest in Israel. It will focus on the attempt to define "Non-Generation", as a temporary concept in the protest and to examine the meaning of his structuring in a space that allowed wondering and thinking, in a social event.