Rift

Asia, Africa, and Europe meet where tectonic plates pull apart. In this interval of continents lies the Jordan River Valley, a region defined as much by conflict as by confluence. This issue of Pamphlet highlights the different understandings of terrain and territory that once defined and continue to reinforce this interstitial landscape in a series of perspectives. Rift: 7.5 Views on the Jordan Valley brings together the manifold vectors that crisscross the valley: watercourses, borderlines, warpaths, power lines, surveillance sightlines. Seen collectively, these vectors form a rhizomatous network of socio-political forces—physical, political, psychological—which spans the rift like a spider’s web.