Paper short abstract:

“melancholic citizenship” will be suggested to describe the emotion of sadness aroused among citizens following a process that highlights their marginality. The case study explored is HaTikva district of south Tel Aviv following a global migration arousing melancholy among long-term residents.

Paper long abstract:

The concept of citizenship is often related to legal status within the nation-state. However, its actual expression is defined by one’s standing within the political community, where spaces of citizenship extend to the city level. According to this perspective, although people may be included in the collective by the state law, they may also, in actual fact, be excluded by the unwritten spatial law. This law dictates the life conditions of minorities and creates symbolic and physical boundaries that pushes “others” to the city margins where marginalized citizens and noncitizens contest their exclusions. Whereas public demonstration of discriminated citizens emerging at the urban periphery might be seen as a raging outbursts per se, closer examination reveals they are also a site of sadness and melancholy. Following this line of thought, I will suggest the concept “melancholic citizenship” to describe the emotion of sadness aroused among a discriminated group of citizens in light of a process that highlights their marginality. Based on anthropological field work I conducted in the HaTikva neighborhood of south Tel Aviv which is associated with Mizarhi Jews (Jews who immigrated to Israel from Arab countries) between the years 2010–2013, I argue that the struggle of the long-standing residents aroused melancholic feelings among them when they realized that the global migration is a current indication of their discrimination as lower-income Mizrahim, who inhabit the city periphery and are located at the margins of Israeli society.