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Launch of the Preliminary Glossary of Rurbanity and a Contribution on “Netush” in Occupied Palestine

Launch of the Preliminary Glossary of Rurbanity and a Contribution on “Netush” in Occupied Palestine

I’m pleased to share the launch of the preliminary version of the Glossary of Rurbanity, a collective research and knowledge project emerging from the DDes Conference 2026, hosted by Harvard Graduate School of Design in September.

The project seeks to build an open, multivocal glossary for understanding the intertwined relationships between the rural and the urban, and for rethinking the conceptual and spatial boundaries that separate them. Through contributions from researchers and practitioners working across diverse geographical and intellectual contexts, the atlas opens up a space for developing new vocabularies and critical approaches to spatial, social, and political transformations that conventional classifications of the rural and the urban fail to capture.

The project received 290 submissions from 245 contributors representing 65 different regions, seeking to create a shared space of knowledge in which local experiences intersect with broader debates on urbanism and place.

My contribution to the atlas takes the form of an entry on “Netush”, in occupied Palestine. The term, of Hebrew origin, refers to vacant land within Arab villages and towns in the occupied Palestinian territories (within Israel). This contribution forms part of a broader conceptual dialogue on place and its transformations, particularly within the context of settler colonialism. It is also an attempt to introduce a term rooted in our local context into a transgeographical and multilingual discussion on the production and understanding of space.

You can explore the atlas and my contribution here:

https://wendy250.github.io/glossary-of-rurbanity/

The atlas is currently available in its preliminary version, with a final edition to follow, incorporating conference materials and participants’ contributions.

I’m glad to share this work and look forward to the conversations it may open up around language, place, and knowledge, and around the capacity of local vocabularies to expand the conceptual tools we use to understand rural and urban transformations.