מאמרים בכתבי עת
1. Avieli, Nir. 2016. The Hummus Wars Revisited: Israeli-Arab Politics Gastromediation. Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies. 16.3: 19-30.
The state of Israel has been involved in a long-standing violent conflict with its Arab neighbors, yet Jews and Arabs share a culinary passion: Hummus. This humble dip of mashed chickpeas seasoned with tahini and lemon juice is ubiquitous in Middle Eastern public and private culinary spheres and is extremely popular among Arabs and Israeli-Jews, and, as of recently, among western consumers lured by the health qualities of the “Mediterranean diet" and by the exotic nature of the dish itself. In 2008, hummus became the subject of a heated debate between Israel and Lebanon that revolved around cultural copyrights, culinary heritage, and economic revenues. In this article I return to the so-called "Hummus Wars", a series of culinary undertakings performed in Lebanon and Israel in an attempt to claim ownership over hummus by setting a Guinness Record for the largest hummus dish. I focus on one of these events, which attracted substantial attention in Israel and beyond: the Guinness Record breaking at the Palestinian-Israeli village of Abu Gosh. In my analysis of this event I highlight two aspects of the “Hummus Wars" that are of specific interest to food scholars. I first argue that food metaphors acquire a life of their own and may express unexpected meanings. Importantly, I point to the unexpected role of mediators undertaken by Palestinians of Israeli citizenship in this event. I suggest that a process of what I term “gastromediation" was taking place in Abu Gosh, in which the smooth oily paste was intended to serve as a material and social lubricant for the Israeli-Arab-Jewish-Palestinian conflict.
1. Avieli Nir and Markowitz, F., 2017. Slavery food, soul food, salvation food: veganism and identity in the African Hebrew Israelite Community. African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, pp.1-16.
Based on participation in several Dimona Community events including food preparation in the communal kitchen; observations in the Chicago Soul Vegetarian Restaurant and cooking in the Atlanta Soul Vegetarian Restaurant, and several life history—including culinary history--interviews taken over the course of two decades, In this article we explore the place of food in the AHIC. as a central medium and metaphor that demonstrates the sad and difficult diasporic history of identity-less Hebrew Israelites-turned-Africans transported to America where they were transformed into necessarily black slaves who, with their skills, acumen and resilience, crafted a cuisine that provided an outlet for their creativity as well as survival. With the resurrected knowledge of their origins and the community of righteousness that they have established, we explore how the AHIC, as an ever-evolving community, takes its food to the next level in its quest for the KOG. We do this by presenting an overview of the transition from slave food to soul food, and then a summary of how cooks and nutritionists prepare and talk about preparing the soul vegan food that they believe to be good to eat. We then shift focus to one specific food, watermelon, to demonstrate ethnographically how a mocked, if not despised food, can and is resurrected in the community, just as are its human bodies and souls. We thereby show how in the AHIC foods and bodies are to work together to bring about new combinations of health, sustainability and righteousness. The article ends with a discussion of other foods for which the AHIC is considering recipe development, showing again how deprecated bodies and souls that carry the legacy of slavery and racism are not rejected and abandoned but reshaped, reinterpreted and re-produced to bring about salvation. AND how "soul veg" has branched into Teva deli, the development of vegan food products for an Israeli audience, and the serving of Israeli foods at 2015 NWP, including falafel, hummus—and…negotiations underway to open a Soul Veg in Skokie, the heavily Jewish suburb north of Chicago. The Hebrews reunite culinarily with long-lost Jewish-Israeli roots after 50 years in the land.
2. Cohen, Yael, Michal Krumer-Nevo, and Nir Avieli. 2017. Bread of Shame: Mechanisms of Othering in Soup Kitchens. Social Problems, 64, 3: 398–413.
This article examines processes of othering in seven soup kitchens in Israel through participant observations as a staff-volunteer and as a diner. While othering and otherness are discussed widely, their empirical study in regard to poverty is focused mainly on discourse analysis of texts that appeared in the media. This article contributes to this body of knowledge by analyzing the everyday routines, habits, norms, rules, and arrangements of space and time that turn the diners from 'ordinary' people to 'Others'. This process contains four simultaneous mechanisms: drawing boundaries, distancing and rejection, stripping of personal identity, and the attribution of stigma. The article discusses these mechanisms in the context of othering of people in poverty. In addition the article discusses methodological issues that derive from the unique use of body senses as a research tool.
3. ארוחות ואחרות- תהליכי האחרה בבתי תמחוי, כהן,יעל, מיכל קרומר-נבו וניר אביאלי. 2016. . סוציולוגיה ישראלית, 18, 1 105-125
למרות שהאחרה (Othering) הינה פרקטיקה הפועלת הן בזירת השיח והן בזירת ההתנהגות ככלי מרכזי של אפליה והדרה, הרי שמרבית הדיון על אחרות של אנשים החיים בעוני מתרכז בייצוגם בזירת המדיה התקשורתית, כלומר עוסק בניתוח טקסטים, כתובים, מדוברים או ויזואליים (Camara, White, Drummond, Jackson & Ronald, 2009; Chauhan & Foster, 2013; Greer & Jewkes, 2005; O'barr, 1994; Riggins, 1997;). הטיה זו מותירה את פרקטיקות ההאחרה, המתקיימות בזירת ההתנהגות והיחסים הבינאישיים ללא תשומת לב מחקרית הולמת, למרות חשיבותן ומרכזיותן. מטרתו של מחקר זה היא למלא חלל זה באמצעות מחקר אתנוגרפי הבוחן את תהליכי ההאחרה כפי שהם מתממשים בפועל בבתי תמחוי. הבחירה בבתי תמחוי כזירה למחקר, נובעת מעובדת היותם של בתי תמחוי זירות חברתיות מורכבות, שמביאות לידי ביטוי אינטרסים מנוגדים. מחד, מדובר במוסדות שלא למטרות רווח המופעלים בהתנדבות על ידי אנשים פרטיים וממומנים בעיקר באמצעות תרומות, ואשר אופיים הוולונטרי הוא ביטוי של חסד וחמלה כלפי ציבור של חברי החברה המוחלשים ביותר. ניתן לראות בהם אף ביטוי של סולידריות חברתית; מאידך נתפס עצם קיומם של בתי תמחוי כאישור של מדיניות כלכלית-חברתית ניאו-ליבראלית, אשר מייצרת ומחזקת את המצוקה הכלכלית והעוני, שהחסד הוא ממנה והלאה (דורון, 2006, 2007 Poppendieck, 1999 ; Tarasuk & Eakin, 2003 ). יתרה מכך או יתר על כן, בתי תמחוי נתפסים כמרחבים של חסד בהם ניתן סיוע ללא תנאי, בדיקה או רישום, ולפיכך הם אינם מחייבים את צרכניהם להוכיח את נזקקותם ומאפשרים להם לשמור על כבודם. אך בה בעת, עצם הזדקקותם של הסועדים לסיוע באוכל מצביעה עליהם כעל מי שאינם מסוגלים לספק את צרכיהם הבסיסיים ביותר בכוחות עצמם ולפיכך מטביעה בהם דימוי שלילי (הורוביץ, 2001; רענן, 2003). הפרקטיקות הספציפיות באמצעותן מנוהלים, מופעלים וממושטרים הסועדים לא זכו עד כה לתיעוד וניתוח מפורטים, וכן לא תוארו מקומם של חסד מחד או הזנחה והתעלמות מאידך בפעולתם היומיומית של בתי תמחוי. באמצעות תצפית משתתפת שקיימה הכותבת הראשונה כמתנדבת ובעיקר כסועדת במספר בתי תמחוי מבקש מאמר זה לבחון תהליכים של האחרה כפי שהם מתגלמים בפרקטיקה השגרתית, הטבעית לכאורה, של בתי התמחוי, כגון ארגון המרחב הפיזי והטמפורלי, דרכי חלוקת המזון, והאינטראקציה בין אנשי הצוות לסועדים. באופן ספציפי מצביע המאמר על ההאחרה כתוצר של ארבעה תהליכים: הצבת גבול, הרחקה, טשטוש זהות והטלת סטיגמה.
ספרים
1. Avieli, Nir. 2017. Food and Power: A Culinary Ethnography of Israel. Berkeley: University of California Press.
פרקים בספרים
1. Avieli, Nir. 2016. Local Foods, Local Specialties, and Local Identity. In Klein, J. and J. Watson. The Handbook of Food and Anthropology. London: Bloomsbury. Pp. 144-166.
This chapter develops and complicates the understanding of the ways in which local food interacts with local identity by focusing on what should have been right at the core of the anthropological attention: local specialties, prepared in specific places from local ingredients in unique methods and into distinctive artifacts that are presented by the locals as important components of the locale. I show how these artifacts express in minute details and with great sensitivity the social and cultural complexities of the locale, well beyond the explicit definitions made by locals and outsiders. It also shows how different dishes may convey different and even contradicting ideas regarding the meaning of local identity, and how these ideas are deciphered differently by different consumers. Most importantly, It shows that local specialties, even when presented by the locals as important collective representations, are not always consumed by the locals. The meanings of these local specialties are therefore complex and often stem from discursive practices that transcend the apparent materiality of food.
1. Avieli, Nir. 2017. Italian Food in Israel: Representing an Imagined Mediterranean. In Naccarato, Peter, Zachary Nowak, and Elgin Eckert, (eds.). Representing Italy through Food. London: Bloomsbury. Pp. 239-261.
Italian food is extremely popular in Israel, second only to the so called Mizrahi (“oriental") cuisine. Pasta and pizza are ubiquitous in Israeli homes, while pizzerias, gelatos, espresso bars and Italian restaurants dot the urban scape. Italian dishes are also served in most Israeli cafes. In this chapter, I explore the meanings attributed by Israeli-Jews to Italian food and by extension to their perceptions of Italy. I first describe the arrival of Italian food in Israel's culinary landscape, outlining the unique process in which Italian food arrived in Israel. I show how the process was very different than in, for example, the U.S. or Australia, where Italian emigrants brought their culinary traditions with them. In Israel by contrast, pizza and pasta were imported into the country mainly from the U.S., and mainly by non-Italians. Drawing on more than a decade of anthropological research, I then argue that Italian food in Israel features a few singular characteristics that make it so popular: the portions are very large, there are numerous dairy based dishes, and the restaurants are family-friendly. Another central finding of my fieldwork is the prominence in Israel of dishes from Southern Italy—here too I offer a very different analysis than has been given for the same prominence of the southern contribution in emigrant Italian food. For my analysis, I draw on Tuchman and Levin's insightful article about how Chinese food became so central in the social life of New York Jews. While American Jews perceived Italian food as threatening due to its Catholic connotations and explicit non-kosher features, and therefore opted for the unmarked Chinese food, Italian food is popular in Israel precisely for the opposite reason. I suggest that the identification with Southern Italy allows Israeli-Jews to imagine themselves as belonging to the Mediterranean region, local yet occidental, thus transcending the Middle East and the complex relations with their Arab/Palestinian neighbors. The representation of Italy that Italian food is imbued with—a westward-looking, peaceful pan-Mediterraneanism - makes it the perfect repast for Israelis eager to both fill their stomachs with kosher food and to forget their troubled relations with their neighbors. This chapter describes a very different use of representations of Italy than other countries which Italian cuisine has conquered, and opens new possibilities for research in emigrant cuisines without emigrants.
2. אביאלי, ניר. 2017. מהפיכת הסוכר. בתוך: מהפיכות: נקודות מפנה שעיצבו את עולמנו. בעריכת יובל גלעד. האוניברסיטה המשודרת, משרד הבטחון.
פרק זה דן בתהליך בו הפך הסוכר, שהיה בעבר חומר אקזוטי, נדיר ויקר שהגיע עד המאה ה-16 על דרך המשי ובנתיבי מסחר אחרים, הפך למוצר סתמי וזול, למרכיב בסיסי ויומיומי במטבחי כל תרבויות העולם, וגם לאחד ממקורות הקלוריות העיקריים בעולם. הוא הפך להיות לאחת הרעות החולות של העולם המערבי.
מאמרים בכתבי עת
1. Berkovitch, Nitza, and Neve Gordon. "Differentiated Decoupling and Human Rights." Social Problems, Volume 63, Issue 4, 1 November 2016, Pages 499–512,
One of the major issues attracting the attention of scholars studying global norm regimes, especially the human rights regime, is their impact on domestic settings. Borrowing from organizational studies, some of these scholars have used the term decoupling to conceptualize the widespread phenomenon of states that sign conventions but do not implement these conventions' norms. In this article, we introduce the concept of differentiated decoupling, arguing that the implementation of human rights norms needs to be rethought and re-operationalized. We present a case study—the right to vote in the United States—to illustrate our argument that it is vital to disaggregate the decoupling processes and examine the different social groups within the state rather than limit scrutiny to the state level. We further contend that in order to explain differentiated decoupling, perspectives developed and used by sociologists who study inequality need to be adopted. In this way, scholars can capture the unequal distribution of human rights in domestic settings and begin to untangle the forces leading to differentiated decoupling. An analysis of differentiated decoupling helps reveal that “more human rights" sometimes means more human rights to one group and less to another, suggesting that implementation of human rights norms may even deepen stratification.
מאמרים בכתבי עת
1. Gutman, Yifat. "Looking backward to the future: Counter-memory as oppositional knowledge-production in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict." Current Sociology 65.1 (2017): 54-72.
This article examines a strategy of peace activism that gained visibility in the last decades: memory activism. Memory activists manifest a temporal shift in transnational politics: first the past, then the future. Affiliated with the globally-circulating paradigm of historical justice, memory activist groups assume that a new understanding of the past could lead to a new perception of present problems and project alternative solutions for the future. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and discourse analysis among memory activists of the 1948 war in Israel since 2001, the article examines the activist production of counter-memory during active conflict. Using Coy et al.'s typology of oppositional knowledge-production, the article shows how the largest group of memory activism in Israel produced 'new' information on the war, critically assessed the dominant historical narrative, offered an alternative shared narrative, and began to envision practical solutions for Palestinian refugees. However, the analysis raises additional concerns that reach beyond the scope of the typology, primarily regarding the unequal power relations that exist not only between the dominant and activist production of oppositional knowledge, but also among activists.
2. Gutman, Yifat. "Memory Laws: An Escalation in Minority Exclusion or a Testimony to the Limits of State Power?" Law & Society Review 50.3 (2016): 575-607.
The article addresses the tension between nation-state memory and the law through “memory laws." In contrast to laws that ban genocide denial or a positive perception of a violent past, I focus on laws that ban a negative perception of a violent past. As I will show, these laws were utilized for a non-democratic purpose in the last decade or more: They were proposed in order to limit public debate on the national past by banning oppositional or minority views, in contrast to the principles of free speech and deliberative democracy. Their legislation in such cases also stands in opposition to truth-telling efforts in the international arena. I compare two cases of memory legislation, in contemporary Russia and Israel, and evaluate their different impacts on democratic public debates in practice. A third case of “failed legislation" in France compliments the analysis by demonstrating not only the capacity but also the limitation of state power to silence or control public debate using the law. Although national laws often reflect majority culture and memory, I propose that memory laws in Russia, Israel, and France present an escalating degree of minority exclusion—from omission to active banning.
ספרים
1. Gutman, Yifat, 2017, Memory Activism: Reimagining the Past for the Future in Israel-Palestine, Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, TN
2. Gutman, Yifat, Adam Brown, and Amy Sodaro (eds.), 2017, Memory and the Future: Transnational Politics, Ethics and Society, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, England; New York
פרקים בספרים
1. Grinberg, L.L. (2017). "The Forgotten Question: Israel's Democratic Limits" in Schlesinger, Algazi and Ezrahi, eds., Israel/Palestine: Studies Following Baruch Kimmerling Scientific Journey (Jerusalem: Magness Press) (Hebrew)
2. Grinberg, L.L. (2017) "Paving the way to neo-liberalism: the self-destruction of the Zionist labor movement, 1967-1996", in Shalev and Meron eds, The New Political Economy of Israel (Oxford University Press).
3. Grinberg, L.L. (2016) "Neither One nor Two: Reflections about a Shared Future in Israel-Palestine", in Peled and Ehrenberg eds. Israel and Palestine: Alternative Perspectives on Statehood (Rowman and Littlefield).
4. Grinberg, L.L. (2016) "The 1977 Paradox: Immediate Crises and Long Range Economic and Political Restructuring Outcomes of the Changeover" in Ben-Rafael, Schoeps, Sternberg, and Glöckner eds. The Handbook of Israel: The Major Debates (Mouton de Gruyter).
מאמרים בכתבי עת
1. Asa Maron and Sara Helman. 2017. "Unravelling the Politics of Activation Reforms: Exploring the Unusual Israeli Trajectory." Social Policy and Administration 51 (3): 405-423
Contemporary active labour market (ALM) reforms are pivotal in the reorganization of the welfare state as they challenge and threaten some of the fundamental achievements of labour in capitalist societies: social programmes and entitlements that compensate for unemployment, and governance arrangements in which the social partners share authority and responsibility with the state. Consequently, ALM reforms may give raise to social unrest and political struggle that involves the state (the main proponent of ALM reforms), trade unions and political parties. These conflicts are important in the politicization of reforms, i.e. raising public awareness of and engagement with controversies of welfare state change. In this article, we use a non-European perspective to ask more generally how distinct historical institutions create separate 'politicization trajectories' of ALM reforms, which in turn produce different policy designs and outcomes. Centring on the case of Israel, in which historically 'abnormal' class politics fostered indifference to the reform in both trade unions and political parties, we maintain that the preliminary de-politicization made it possible for bureaucrats to control the reform, leading to an intra-state conflict between competing agencies over its design and implementation. The usurpation of the reform by the Ministry of Finance made it conspicuously unbalanced, provoking many grievances. Paradoxically, the de-politicization of the reform advanced its re-politicization, led by non-governmental advocacy organizations in civil society. These uncommon political actors in the politics of ALM reforms were able to lead a counter-coalition, delegitimize the reform, and mobilize politicians to eventually terminate activation.
יוליה שבצ'נקו ושרה הלמן. 2017. "מחאה אנטי-ניאו-ליבראלית ותוצרים ניאו-ליבראליים: ניכוס ותרגום תביעות מחאת האוהלים על ידי ועדת טרכטנברג." סוציולוגיה ישראלית י"ט, 1 : 169-145
במאמר זה אנו בוחנות את האופן שבו ועדת טרכטנברג בחנה את הגורמים למחאה, את זהות משתתפיה ואת סוגי המענה שהציעה לתביעות המוחים. באמצעות ניתוח שיח ביקורתי אנו חושפות את פרדיגמת המדיניות — תהליך של הבניית בעיות חברתיות, אוכלוסיות יעד ומכשירי
מדיניות — שבאמצעותה יוחסה משמעות לתביעות המוחים ושתורגמה להצעות מדיניות .(agenda) settingטענתנו היא כי דוח ועדת טרכטנברג אמנם ניכס את הרטוריקה של המחאה, אולם תרגם אותה לסדר יום מדיני באמצעות שיזור בין מדיניות כלכלית-חברתית ניאו-ליברלית שרוככה בשוליה ובין תובנות של מודל ההשקעה החברתית — מדיניות אירופית המעודדת פיתוחו של הון אנושי במסגרת של כלכלת ידע. עוד אנו טוענות כי דוח ועדת טרכטנברג הבנה מחדש את הפרויקט ההגמוני הישראלי בתקופה הניאו-ליברלית. ניתוחנו מבוסס על שילוב בין הספרות העוסקת בתוצרי תנועות חברתיות ובין הגישה המוסדית-רעיונית. שילוב זה מאפשר להבין כיצד תוצרי תנועות חברתיות עשויים להיות מנוגדים לכוונותיהם של המוחים, וכיצד הידע והשיח (שמקורם בפרדיגמת המדיניות) שעליהם סוכני מדינה מבססים את פרשנותם לתביעות המוחים עלולים לדלל תביעות אלו ולתרום לפיזור המחאה ולדה-מוביליזציה שלה.
פרקים בספרים
1. Helman, Sara and Asa Maron. 2017. "Wisconsin Works in Israel? Imported Ideas, Domestic Coalitions and the Institutional Politics of Recommodification." In: Asa Maron and Michael Shalev (Eds.), Neoliberalism as a State Project: Changing the Political Economy of Israel. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
פרקים בספרים
1. Elias, Nelly. and Julia Lerner. 2016. “Post-Soviet Immigrant Religiosity beyond the Israeli national religion". The New Jewish Diaspora: Russian-Speaking Immigrants in the United States, Israel, and Germany, edited by Z. Gitelman: Rutgers University Press. Pp. 213-228.
This chapter presents an analysis of immigrants' religiosity by examining the construction of religious identity and consciousness among post-Soviet immigrants in Israel. We present, first, the theoretical and contextual complexity of the content and the context of Russian-speaking immigrant religiosity in Israel and suggest three possible explanations for this newly emerging religiosity that address its global and local nature. Then, we apply our approach to the analysis of two case studies that represent different manifestations of the religious choice within Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel outside the boundaries of Jewish “national religion": the case of the immigrant church in the south of Israel and the Christian spiritual search of immigrant youngsters of non-Jewish or mixed ethnic origin. Bringing these cases together we consider the Russian-speaking immigrants' religious transformation at the crossroads of two cultural and ideological contexts: the Israeli national context, which emphasizes Jewish religion as a way for belonging; and the Russian-Soviet context, which is ambivalent towards religion and provides multiple options for spiritual quest.
2. Lerner, Julia and Claudia Zbenovich. 2016. "Talking publicly about personal in post-Soviet media culture". In N. Vakhtin and B. Firsov (eds.). Matters of Disorder: Public Debate in Russia. Edinburgh University Press. (Version of the volume in the Russian language was published in 2017 in NLO: Moscow).
3. לרנר יוליה וקלאודיה זבנוביץ'. 2016. שיח תרפויטי בתרגום לרוסית: ניתוח של תוכנית ריאליטי בטלוויזיה פוסט-סובייטית. מעבר לקליניקה: השיח הפסיכולוגי בתרבות העכשווית. עורכים: ז'. ברונר וג. פלוטקין. רסלינג: תל אביב. עמ' 129-159.
These two articles represent two variants of our analysis of the translation of the therapeutic psychological language in the new media genres in Russia. The English version stresses the linguistic dimensions of the appearance of the new language of talking about private life in the public sphere, and the Hebrew version interprets the modes of dealing with the "inner world" of the individual that are alternative to the western psychological model. In this article we present a close reading of the discursive media transformation generated by “Fashion Verdict" – a makeover reality show broadcast on Russian TV. Our analysis reveals that the adopted therapeutic cultural genre constitutes a new mode of talk about personal experience in the post-Soviet popular culture, a mode based on pop-psychological assumptions and linked to the discursive practice of psychotherapy. However, we show that in the post-Soviet media the therapeutic talking culture encounters powerful cultural counterparts. Apart from psychotherapy, the TV courtroom transformation works by shifting three other discursive frames of articulation of individual and personal life: communist Comrades' Court, soviet Kitchen Talk and glamorous Fashion Show. Combining anthropological, semiotic and conversational analysis, we decipher how the familiar discursive forms of talking about personal life domesticate the therapeutic discourse in the Russian communicative culture: they pave the way for its acceptance and concomitantly contest and possibly undermine the ideas that the therapeutic culture brings in.
פרקים בספרים
1. Maman Daniel, "Big Business and the State in the Neoliberal Era: What Changed, What Didn't?" Pp. 46-59, in Asa Maron and Michael Shalev (eds), Neoliberalism as a State Project: Changing the Political Economy of Israel, 2017, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
The chapter reveals the dual role played by the state in advancing economic liberalization via a mix of enabling and constraining interventions. On the one hand, through neoliberal policies such as privatization, the creation of new markets and the removal of barriers to cross-border trade and investment, the state has opened up new opportunities for big business and facilitated further concentration. On the other hand, state initiatives were deployed strategically in order to undermine previously held pivotal positions of big business. Banking was forcibly detached from business groups, new financial instruments and actors were created, and domestic producers were exposed to foreign competition. Through this mix of enabling and constraining interventions, the state succeeded in sweeping away the economic elites of the developmental era while facilitating the emergence of successors who enjoy immense wealth and power. The chapter nevertheless shows that state agencies have lessened the structural dependency of the state and its direct subsidy of capital, while strengthening its regulatory capacities.
2. Maman Daniel and Zeev Rosenhek, "The Reconfigured Institutional Architecture of the State: The Rise of Fiscal and Monetary Authorities." Pp. 60-73, in Asa Maron and Michael Shalev (eds), Neoliberalism as a State Project: Changing the Political Economy of Israel, 2017, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
The chapter survey the changing architecture of the state and its consequences. Specifically, it focus on the rise of the Treasury and the central bank, as well as the intra-state politics of coalition-building and conflict between them, both of which were pivotal in molding the liberalization of Israel's political economy. The chapter introduce two theoretical arguments. First, it challenges the view that neoliberalism is a fundamentally ideational project by demonstrating that the construction of institutionalized capacities for state autonomy was by and large inspired by the pursuit of institutional self-interest by proactive state agencies. Second, from a temporal point of view, it documents how some of these capacities were put in place in advance, thereby serving as preconditions, while others developed later as part of the thrust to pursue neoliberal reforms, and were strengthened by them.
ספרים
1. נאשף, איסמעיל. 2017. ערבית: סיפורה של מסכה קולוניאלית,. ון ליר והקיבוץ המאוחד
2. נאשף, איסמעיל. 2016. ילדות יוני: טרגיות בספרות ילדים, תאמר לחינוך קהילתי
מאמרים בכתבי עת
1. Feldman, Jackie. Key figure of mobility: the pilgrim, Social Anthropology 25 (2017):69-82.
Zygmunt Bauman wrote that whereas the modern problem was to construct an identity and keep it stable, the postmodern one was to avoid fixation and keep all options open. He characterises this shift from solid modernity to liquid postmodernity as the movement 'from pilgrim to tourist': the pilgrim follows a lifelong path through the desert of life. Along the road, sacrifices are made, pleasures foregone, byways ignored, immediate rewards forsaken, to achieve one's ultimate goal. In liquid modernity, the pilgrim is replaced by the tourist, the systematic seeker of diversity, pleasure and novelty. I argue that Bauman's image of the 'plodding pilgrim' does violence to the multiplicity of pilgrim experiences. I show how historical pilgrimage has involved risk-taking and serendipity, a suspension of social ties and routines as well as a desire for transcendence. Contemporary pilgrimage often includes a desire for intimacy, intense bodily experience, changed attitudes towards time and nature and the quest for self-transformation. Pilgrimage may forge alternative bonds of community and provide new ways of imagining futures. The pilgrim, far from being an icon for a frozen past, is a figure that embodies many aspects of contemporary mobility and identity.
ספרים
1. Feldman, Jackie. 2016. A Jewish Guide in the Holy Land: How Christian Pilgrims Made Me Israeli. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press
מאמרים בכתבי עת
1. Ronit Nadiv, Aviad Raz, Shani Kuna (2017) "What a difference a role makes: Occupational and organizational characteristics related to the HR strategic role among human resource managers,"Employee Relations, Vol. 39 Issue: 7, pp.1131-1147
Purpose – Based on the human resources (HR) role framework (Conner and Ulrich, 1996), the purpose of this paper is to empirically explore why HR practitioners differ in their strategic partner role positioning. The present study suggests and tests a descriptive model regarding occupational and organizational characteristics associated with strategic HR role positioning.
Design/methodology/approach – In all, 100 questionnaires were collected from Israeli HR practitioners. Hierarchical regressions were used to test the association between occupational and organizational characteristics and the strategic role perception among HR practitioners.
Findings – Although the findings only partially supported the suggested model, significant associations between occupational and organizational characteristics and HR strategic positioning were found. HR practitioners in volatile organizational environments adopt a strategic role perception. Moreover, years of experience are also associated with an HR strategic role perception. Specifically, the major predictors of attaining a strategic partner role amongst HR practitioners are location of organizational activities mainly in the metropolitan area, and involvement in major organizational changes.
Research limitations/implications – The sample had a positive bias of respondents. Questionnaires were delivered mainly to highly educated HR practitioners in notably professional HR departments. Data were based on self-reported one-time questionnaires.
Practical implications – The research has implications for the processes of academic education and professional training of HR practitioners and also their recruitment in organizations.
Originality/value – To the best of the authors' knowledge, recent studies aimed at exploring sources of variance in the strategic role perception amongst HR practitioners are rather scarce. This research helps to address this gap, while also broadening the literature regarding HR communities in the Middle East.
2. Aviad E. Raz | Gavan Tzruya. 2017. Doing gender in segregated and assimilative organizations: Ultra‐Orthodox Jewish women in the Israeli high‐tech labour market Gender Work Organization. 2017;1–18
Ultra Orthodox Jewish (haredi) women in Israel, who are traditionally expected to be both mothers and breadwinners so as to allow their husbands to immerse themselves in religious studies, are recently entering the high‐tech labour market in both segregated and assimilate organizations. This segmented labour market allows the constructed and intersectional character of doing gender in organizations to be examined, which in turn may also effect the ways in which such labour segmentation continues to develop. In 2014–2015, we administered a questionnaire to 119 haredi women working as computer programmers in assimilative and segregated organizations, and interviewed 42 of them as well as 16 of their managers. We describe the emergence of a dual pattern of employment with its benefits and disadvantages regarding pay, satisfaction, commitment and burnout. Findings are presented concerning the balancing of work and family as well as the professional/social conflict that is accentuated by working in an assimilative organization. Our findings show how the intersection of work, religiosity, class and gender is central to women's labour trajectories and identities, highlighting both the boundaries of gendered arrangements and their negotiability. We conclude by discussing how specific strategies of doing gender in segmented labour markets play out in/against 'global' norms of work and professionalism.
3. Aviad Raz, Christina Schües, Nadja Wilhelm & Christoph Rehmann-Sutter (2017). Saving or Subordinating Life? Popular Views in Israel and Germany of Donor Siblings Created through PGD. J Med Humanit 38:191–207
To explore how cultural beliefs are reflected in different popular views of preimplantation genetic diagnosis for human leukocyte antigen match (popularly known as “savior siblings"), we compare the reception and interpretations, in Germany and Israel, of the novel/film My Sister's Keeper. Qualitative analysis of reviews, commentaries and posts is used to classify and compare normative assessments of PGD for HLA and how they reproduce, negotiate or oppose the national policy and its underlying cultural and ethical premises. Four major themes emanated from the comparison: loss of self-determination and autonomy; loss of dignity through instrumentalization; eugenics and euthanasia; and saving life. In both countries, most commentaries represented a dominant position, with a few negotiated positions. We also highlight the decoding of a relatively less explored bioethical aspect of My Sister's Keeper's narrative, namely the meaning of euthanasia. We conclude by discussing how the findings relate to attempts of providing cultural explanations for the regulation of HLA-PGD.
4. Mark Schweda, Silke Schicktanz, Aviad Raz and Anita Silvers. (2017). Beyond cultural stereotyping: views on end-of-life decision making among religious and secular persons in the USA, Germany, and Israel. BMC Medical Ethics 18:13
Background: End-of-life decision making constitutes a major challenge for bioethical deliberation and political governance in modern democracies: On the one hand, it touches upon fundamental convictions about life, death, and the human condition. On the other, it is deeply rooted in religious traditions and historical experiences and thus shows great socio-cultural diversity. The bioethical discussion of such cultural issues oscillates between liberal individualism and cultural stereotyping. Our paper confronts the bioethical expert discourse with public moral attitudes.
Methods: The paper is based on a qualitative study comprising 12 focus group discussions with religious and secular persons in the USA, Germany, and Israel (n = 82). Considering the respective socio-political and legal frameworks, the thematic analysis focuses on moral attitudes towards end-of-life decision making and explores the complex interplay between individual preferences, culture, and religion.
Results: Our findings draw attention to the variety and complexity of cultural and religious aspects of end-of-life decision making. Although there is local consensus that goes beyond radical individualism, positions are not neatly matched with national cultures or religious denominations. Instead, the relevance of the specific situatedness of religious beliefs and cultural communities becomes visible: Their status and role in individual situations, for example, as consensual or conflicting on the level of personal perspectives, family relationships, or broader social contexts, e.g., as a majority or minority culture within a political system.
Conclusions: As the group discussions indicate, there are no clear-cut positions anchored in “nationality," “culture," or “religion." Instead, attitudes are personally decided on as part of a negotiated context representing the political, social and existential situatedness of the individual. Therefore, more complex theoretical and practical approaches to cultural diversity have to be developed.
5. Aviad Raz, Jonia Amer-Alshiek, Mor Goren-Margalit, Gal Jacobi, Alyssa Hochberg, Ami Amit, Foad Azem and Hadar Amir (2016). Donation of surplus frozen pre-embryos to research in Israel: underlying motivations. Israel Journal of Health Policy Research 2016 5:25 (Published on: 5 November 2016)
Background The high number of IVF procedures performed in Israel has had an unforeseen consequence: accumulation of large amounts of surplus frozen embryos. After five years that the frozen embryos are kept for free, patients need to make an embryo disposition decision. One option is donation for research. The donation rate in Israel is very low. Our aim was to understand the attitudes, values and perceptions of female IVF patients that decided to donate their surplus frozen embryos to research.
Methods The study setting was a tertiary IVF unit which during the 2000–2009 period treated 241 patients who had their frozen pre-embryos stored for more than five years. The study population consists of the 12 patients (from among the 241) who had decided to donate their excess frozen pre-embryos to research. In-depth interviews were carried out with 8 of those 12 patients.
Results IVF patients who donated their surplus frozen pre-embryos to research viewed the frozen embryo as a valuable resource that does not have human identity yet. The majority expressed a gradualist approach to the human status of the embryo as requiring successful implantation and development in the uterus. All the respondents chose donation to research not because it was their first choice but because they did not want or were unable to use the pre-embryos in the future, in addition to not willing to thaw them. For many of the respondents, donation to research was accompanied by a sense of uncertainty. All would have preferred to donate their pre-embryos to infertile women or couples, an option which is currently prohibited in Israel.
Conclusions The moral reasoning behind decisions that patients make regarding excess pre-embryos is important for health care practitioners to consider when offering decision-making alternatives and counseling. For our respondents, the scarcity of donating excess frozen pre-embryos to research may reflect patients' preference for embryo donation to infertile couples. Recommended ways to increase donation to research may include public education and awareness, as well as targeted communication with IVF patients by multi-professional IVF unit teams comprised of a medical doctor and a professional trained in bioethics.
6. Lieberman S, Lahad A, Tomer A, Cohen C, Levy-Lahad E, Raz A. 2016. Population screening for BRCA1/BRCA2 mutations: lessons from qualitative analysis of the screening experience. Genetics in Medicine. 2017 Jun;19(6):628-634. doi: 10.1038/gim.2016.175. Epub 2016 Dec 1.
PURPOSE: Population screening for BRCA1/BRCA2. mutations is being considered for Ashkenazi Jews (AJ) because 2.5% carry recurrent deleterious mutations and effective cancer prevention exists. This study aimed to provide a qualitative focus on perspectives of individuals, particularly carriers, who were tested through a screening trial. In this trial, the pretest process included only written information.
METHODS: Interviews were performed with 26 carriers and 10 noncarriers who participated in a BRCA population screening trial for AJ.
RESULTS: Attitudes toward screening were generally positive. The main motivator for testing was knowledge of BRCA status to enable cancer risk reduction. Knowledge of carrier status, although challenging, was thus viewed as health-empowering. The screening paradigm was sensed as increasing awareness and as overcoming access, referral, and familial barriers. Streamlining the pretest process was positively perceived as offering gradual, stepwise knowledge commensurate with test results. Participants were concerned that health systems provide the necessary conceptual and infrastructural framework and that individual autonomy be maintained.
CONCLUSIONS: BRCA screening in AJ is viewed favorably, even by carriers. Stepwise acquisition of knowledge based on test results was viewed as most relevant to the screening context. Screening program development should account for safeguarding autonomy and providing requisite post-test services.Genet Med advance online publication 01 December 2016.
7. Sari Lieberman MSc, Ariela Tomer MSc, Avi Ben-Chetrit MD, Oded Olsha MD, Shalom Strano MD, Rachel Beeri PhD, Sivan Koka MSc, Hila Fridman MSc, Karen Djemal MD, Itzhak Glick MD, Todd Zalut MD, Shlomo Segev MD, Miri Sklair MD, Bella Kaufman MD, Amnon Lahad MD, MPH, Aviad Raz PhD & Ephrat Levy-Lahad MD. Population screening for BRCA1/BRCA2 founder mutations in Ashkenazi Jews: proactive recruitment compared with self-referral. Genetics in Medicine (2017) 19, 754–762 (2017)
Purpose: Population screening of three common BRCA1/BRCA2 mutations in Ashkenazi Jews (AJ) apparently fulfills screening criteria. We compared streamlined BRCA screening via self-referral with proactive recruitment in medical settings. Methods: Unaffected AJ, age ≥25 years without known familial mutations, were either self-referred or recruiter-enrolled. Before testing, participants received written information and self-reported family history (FH). After testing, both non-carriers with significant FH and carriers received in-person genetic counseling. Psychosocial questionnaires were self-administered 1 week and 6 months after enrollment.
Results: Of 1,771 participants, 58% were recruiter-enrolled and 42% were self-referred. Screening uptake was 67%. Recruited enrollees were older (mean age 54 vs. 48, P < 0.001) and had less suggestive FH (23 vs. 33%, P < 0.001). Of 32 (1.8%) carriers identified, 40% had no significant FH. Post-test counseling compliance was 100% for carriers and 89% for non-carrier women with FH. All groups expressed high satisfaction (>90%). At 6 months, carriers had significantly increased distress and anxiety, greater knowledge, and similar satisfaction; 90% of participants would recommend general AJ BRCA screening.
Conclusion: Streamlined BRCA screening results in high uptake, very high satisfaction, and no excess psychosocial harm. Proactive recruitment captured older women less selected for FH. Further research is necessary to target younger women and assess other populations.
מאמרים בכתבי עת
1. Ram, Uri and Dani Filc. 2016. “The 14th-July of Daphni Leef: Class and Social Protest in Israel". Capital and Class, 41(1): 69-90.
Abstract: This article attempts to analyze the massive 2011 social protest in Israel using a class perspective while addressing the following questions: 1. Which social groups initiated and supported the protest, and which ones did not? 2. What were the socio-economic causes of the protest, and what were its declared aims? 3. What were the characteristic political patterns of the protest, and what explains them? The paper proposes to answer those questions by developing the following three theses: 1) The social category that launched and led the protest was a particular sector of the middle class. 2) The protest was the first large-scale display of class resistance to the post-Fordist, neoliberal socio-economic system that has taken root in Israel since 1985. 3) The protest manifested the emergence of a new kind of “post-postmodern" politics; this, in response to both the representation crisis of the modern political system, and to the failure of postmodern politics to address socio-economic interests.
While most of the social sciences' research on Israel is based on theoretical frameworks that emphasize ethnicity, status, nationality, identity, gender or coloniality as the central explanatory concepts, the paper argues that in order to understand the emergence, as well as the limitations of the 2011 protest the analysis must incorporate a non-essentialist class perspective.
2. Ram, Uri. 2017. “Sociology in the Time of Netanyahu: Critical Trends in Israeli Sociology in the Beginning of the 21st-Century". Megamot 51(2): 13-68 (Hebrew)
This essay addresses critical trends in Israeli sociology in the last twenty years: 1996-2016. This period is named after Benyamin Netanyahu because since his first election as prime minister in 1996 until today he signifies and leads the two major deep processes which re-shape Israeli society: neo-colonialism and neo-liberalism. These two macro-scale processes have also re-shaped Israeli sociology. The first subchapter discusses the context which has shaped the text of sociology; the second discusses the sociology of cleavages, as a bridging link between mainstream and critical sociology. The remaining subchapters expose the various responses of sociology to the two mentioned social conditions. Subchapters 3-5 address three responses to neo-liberalism: post-modern sociology, new Marxist sociology and Bourdieusian sociology. Subchapters 6-8 address three responses to neo-colonialism: post-colonial sociology, Palestinian sociology, and the sociology of the Occupation.
ספרים
1. Ram, Uri. 2017. Israeli Sociology: Text in Context. Palgrave-Macmillan.
הספר הסוציולוגיה הישראלית: טקסט וקונטקסט עוסק בהתפתחות הסוציולוגיה של ישראל החל מראשית ההגירה וההתיישבות הציונית ועד ימינו אלה, כלומר 1882-2018. הטיעון המרכזי בספר הוא כי הסוציולוגיה מהדהדת את התפתחות הלאומיות היהודית-ישראלית אך גם מצויה לעיתים במתח אתה. הספר דן במבשרי הסוציולוגיה בישראל (הפרוטו-סוציולוגיה, 1882-1948); במייסדי ההדיסציפלינה האקדמית (1948-1977); בדור הסוציולוגים הביקורתיים (1977-1995); בסוציולוגים של שסעים חברתיים (1987-2018) ;ובסוציולוגים הפוסטמודרניים והפוסטקולוניאליים (1993-2018). בין השאר נידונים בספר הסוציולוגיה המזרחית החדשה, הסוציולוגיה הפלסטינית של ישראל, סוציולוגיה מרקסיסטית בישראל, הסוציולוגיה של הכיבוש, בעיות בדיסצפינה ועוד.
פרקים בספרים
1. Uri Ram. 2017. "Hebrew Culture in Israel – Between Europe, the Middle East and America". Chapter in Handbook of Israel: The Major Debates. Editors E. Ben Rafael, J.H. Schoeps, Y. Sternberg and O. Glockner. De Gruyter.
The Hebrew culture in Israel has been shaped in the spirit of the Zionist ideology of the national renewal of the Jewish people and of its territorial ingathering in Eretz-Israel-Palestine. The destruction of European Jewry in the Holocaust, on the one hand, and the process of nation-building in Eretz-Israel-Palestine, including especially the hostile encounter with the Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, had decisively impacted this culture as well. This lecture is dedicated to the influence of three wide, but distinct, cultural zones on Hebrew culture in its different periods: The European cultural zone, the Middle-Eastern cultural zone, and American cultural zone. The first part of the lecture will discuss the roots of the decisive influence of European culture on Hebrew culture since the beginning of Zionist settlement and nation-building in Palestine. The second part will address the growing role of Middle-Eastern culture through the Mizrahi (Oriental) immigration, since the 1950s'. The third part will discuss the recent Americanization of Israeli culture.
2. Uri Ram. 2017. “Martin Buber between Left and Right". Chapter in Jack Jacobs (Editor): Jews and the Left. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Abstract: World renowned philosopher Mordechai Martin Buber (1878-1965) is a model figure among Israel's left-wing thinkers; to the same extent, he is a scorned figure among Israel's right-wing thinkers. In the era before the establishment of the State of Israel, Buber was, in the 1920s and 1930s, one of the leaders of Brith Shalom ("Peace Covenant") and, in the 1940s and 1950s, of Ichud ("Union") – radical peace groups that recognized the Arab right to the land of Palestine-Eretz-Israel, alongside the right of the incoming Jewish settlers. While Buber's leftist engagement is very well known, what is less well known is that his political thought is saturated with right-wing features. This chapter highlights this duality in Buber's thought and the dynamic of his relationships with the left in Israel from his time to ours. The first part of the chapter discusses the Zionist political theology of Buber; the second discusses his views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the third discusses the left-right ambiguity in his thought; the fourth and final part discusses the relationship between Buber and different streams of the left in Israel, past and present.
