Abstract

The paper focuses on the relationship between movement (flow), the built up environment (real and virtual networks) and the perceived image of spaces in the “climate” of (yet) undeclared-war, assuming that accelerations are firstly and most clearly to be seen in the military field, affecting the configurations of movement, space, time and matter. “Ba’ada Haifa”, meaning beyond-Haifa in Arabic, is a term coined by Hasan Nasrallah during the July-August 2006 war, when he threatened to launch rockets towards this ambiguous target in Israel. Soon people addressed themselves as belonging, or not, to Ba’ada Haifa. This study explores the existence, meaning and identity of this perceived region as a catchment area of networks and flows, facilitating currents of people (refugees), objects (e.g. rockets, vehicles) and information (from real and virtual environment). Thus, it looks qualitatively for positions and meanings that are defined by military and civic networks and flows and their interplay. Moreover, it assumes that there are invisible sensed flows as well—of mood, feeling, atmosphere—that spread through a certain space in specific time. The paper analyzes and interprets visually and literally scenes experienced or viewed from the roads at first hand, and as described by interviewees and in the media (television, internet, radio and newspapers). It is demonstrated that, with advanced technologies, a military field of operations could physically reach our door or even our living-rooms at the speed of light, thus bearing witness to actual and potential transformations in perceptions of place.