Mapping border evolution in the West Bank: a shift from territorial imageries to multiple governance

Geopolitical conflicts pose significant challenges to global peace and sustainable development. Border regions are frequently the focal points of such disputes, with territorial sovereignty, natural resources, military deployment, and cross-border transportation all contributing to stress. The complexity of these areas, which include various actors, evolving power dynamics, and diverse geographic conditions, makes border policy formulation and evaluation quite challenging. This is especially true when it comes to the material embodiment of spatial power and its everyday socioeconomic effects on the local level. This article focuses on the evolution of Israel’s border governance in the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War, using cartographic representation and spatiotemporal analysis to examine the patterns, dynamics, and implications of border administration. The study finds that: (1) Israel's bordering practices have evolved through three distinct phases—settlement expansion, checkpoint system establishment, and barrier solidification; (2) each phase redefined the physical boundaries on the ground while simultaneously extending and materialising the symbolic expressions of state sovereignty; and (3) Israel’s border governance has gradually shifted from a state-centric security logic toward everyday practices that directly impact Palestinian citizens’ livelihoods, including farming, medical care, education, and cross-border commuting. These findings, combined with visual and spatiotemporal analysis methods, transcend traditional macro-level policy perspectives. This approach offers new tools for understanding the evolving interplay between tangible and intangible dimensions of borders at the micro scale, and sheds new light on evidence-based conflict diagnosis, resolution strategies, and the broader reconfiguration of geopolitics in contested border regions.