Empathetic Critique: A Re-Examination of the Role of the Critical Sociologist
Galit Ailon and Daniella Arieli
We initiate a discussion on critical sociology's orientation to its own "other": the criticized other. Offering a rereading of the writings of Michel Foucault and Homi K. Bhabha, we argue that poststructuralist and postcolonial approaches require a change in the culture of critique, laying the foundations for a critical writing stance resting on empathy which is not limited to a "side," or, more precisely, the construction of a "side." Introducing the concept of "empathetic critique," the paper seeks a way of overcoming the paradoxical aspect of Israeli critical discourse which seeks to deconstruct dichotomies and dualistic thinking modes, but which also reaffirms them repeatedly through its own critical practice.
The Tracking argument: A case study in ‘Critical’ Sociology
This paper attempts to examine Israeli "critical sociology" by focusing on one case study: the "tracking" argument, according to which educational gaps between ethnic groups in Israel developed largely due to a governmental policy in the state's early years aimed at creating a Mizrahi working class. The paper offers a thorough scrutiny of the critical literature on the subject, while also setting out a detailed economic and educational context of that era. The tracking argument proves empirically ungrounded, severely lacking in its methodology and historical presentation, and demagogic. These failures are explained as resulting from strict adherence to a moral stance that informs the critical sociology of education, and that seems to underlie other critical studies.
The Demographic Cost: Fertility Rates and Achievements in International Tests
Yariv Peniger and Yossi Shavit
Studies show that Israeli students achieve worse than their counterparts in other developed countries. We attempt to explain this finding with reference to fertility. In Israel, fertility rates are very high in relation to developed countries. As a result, Israeli families are relatively large, and class size is high. These two variables have been known to depress students’ scholastic achievement. Using PISA 2000 and PISA 2006 data we show that fertility, as indicated by the size of the young population, explains most of the gap between the scores of Israeli students and the international average. Number of siblings and mean class size mediate the effect of the size of the young population. While studies on achievement usually focus on the education system itself, this study highlights the importance of the demographic context for understanding educational outcomes of Israeli students.
In this micro-sociological-anthropological research I discuss the ethics characterizing the relations of strangers in the public urban space of Israeli daily life. I analyzed more than 1000 instances of identification of strangers, which I recorded in an ethnographic and qualitative manner on shared taxi rides between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem between 2005 and 2009. After a systematic analysis of these ethnographic data, I suggest terming the ethics in the public urban space digesting-ethics, as opposed to the hegemonic perception asserting an indifferent-ethics, which “abstains” and “leaves the stranger alone." This innovative ethical reading implies a predetermined relation that tends to eliminate any experience of the stranger as “other” than the identifier's cultural order.
Jerusalem of Money: Governance, Entrepreneurship and Urban Design
This paper examines the relations between the recent luxurious residential projects built in Jerusalem and the sensitive, fragile urban fabric, and contemplates the extent to which governance processes actually affect the form and design of these projects. Particularly, this paper addresses two seemingly separate disciplines: the first deals with governance and planning gains, the second with gated communities and their relations with the urban environment. Based on the Jerusalem case study, we raise two claims: first we show that the relations between local government and developers are enslaved by the rationale of capital. Despite municipal government often being the stronger partner, negotiations with builders and developers adopt an economic viewpoint, apply an economic way of thinking, and as a result put price tags on common urban assets. Secondly, we show that the inner-city luxurious building has many similarities to classic gated-community buildings. Recent residential building projects keep inhabitants practically detached from the near environment, while appropriating historical and cultural assets to themselves. These findings are discussed in light of the role played by public institutions in present-day globalizing cities.
Neo-Institutional Analysis of the Rise of Light Mizrachi Music on Israeli Radio, 1995-2010
This study presents a neo-institutional analysis of Israeli radio music following privatization reforms in the field. The introduction of a US commercial radio format by the Israeli military station and the specialization of Lev Hamedina regional radio in Israeli Mediterranean music built up mimetic pressures across the field to marginalize hardcore Mizrachi songs in favor of light Mizrachi music, which enjoys stylistic flexibility. This new category mediated with other established genres and crystallized under the label “Israeli Mediterranean pop.” This entailed a series of erasures which replaced Arab-Muslim sources with a Mediterranean context. The study underscores how privatization reforms encouraged actors in the field to attain institutional legitimacy by invoking national identity through the systematic erasure of foreign sources.
“Winning in the spirit of football”: The civilization process in English football
Football has changed drastically several times in recent centuries. I describe the complex relationships between social class and cultural product, as well as the ways cultural legitimacy is granted, thereby shaping a neutral product as beautiful and worthy. In contrast to Elias’s arguments about the civilization process (1978) and Bourdieu’s arguments about the acquisition of `taste` (1984), I claim that these processes do not necessarily involve social or class distinctions. Over the last 30 years, football in England has become a Western and classical cultural product, following simultaneous processes of civilization and cultural inclusion. Westernization has also been taking place in Israeli football over the last 20 years, reflecting Israel's perception of itself a European nation-state.
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Book Reviews:
On: Time of the Green Line: A Jewish Political Essay \ Yehouda Shenhav
On: Yizhak Rabin's Assassination and the Dilemmas of Commemoration \ Vered Vitnizky-Seroussi
On: Driving Forces: Trans-Israel Highway and the Privitization of Civil Infrastructures in Israel \ Dan Rabinowitz and Itai Vardi
On: The Bank of Israel Political Economy in the Neoliberal Era \ Daniel Maman and Zeev Rosenhek
On: Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age: The Spirit of Networks \ Eran Fisher
On: Here it Comes: How Do We Survive Climate Change? \ Dan Rabinowitz
On: Who is Willing to Carry this Film on his Back? Watching the Film Trilogy of Ron Ofer and Yochai Hakak on Ultra-Orthodox Society
On: Yeshiva Fundamentalism: Piety, Gender, and Resistance in Ultra-Orthodox World \ Nurit stadler
On: Gentile Ultra-Orthodoxy: Religious Renewal in Oriental Jewry in Israel \ Nissim Leon
On: Flow Against the Stream: Paradoxes in Fulfilling the Vision of the "New Age" in Israel \ Dalit Simcha
On: New Rituals, Old Societies: Invented Rituals in Contemporary Israel \ Nissan Rubin
On: Embodying Culture: Pregnancy in Japan and Israel \ Tsipy Ivry
On: Perspectives on Israeli Anthropology \ Esther Hertzog, Orit Abuhav, Harvey E. Goldberg and Emanuel Marx (Eds.)
On: Eclipse of Reason \ Max Horkheimer
Response of Menachem Topel to a review of his book by Reuven Shapira
Kibbutz on Paths Apart