Frontieriphery: An Anti-positivist Ontological Approach to Intersectional Investigation

Grouping people into a geographical category of ‘peripherality’, based on positivist ontologies, conceals histories and policies of humiliation, marginalisation, and discrimination that forced communities away from access to material and cultural benefits. For this reason, we call for an anti-positivist ontological approach based on intersectional investigation, juxtaposing multi-variants of marginalised identities with multi-dimensional histories of discrimination. We also seek reconsideration of the universal validity of ‘periphery’, ‘peripherality’, and ‘center’, and propose instead to develop more accurate concepts that reflect particular localism, histories, and social conditions. Following the anti-positivist ontology, we meld two concepts of relevance in the Israeli context, periphery and frontier, into a portmanteau—frontieriphery—and add it as a socio-spatial and ethnical frame for intersectionality. Our urgings are the outcomes of research on Israel’s ‘development towns’ and its periphery.