Introduction
Towards a Social-Environmental Paradigm in Israel | Natalia Gutkowski, Rafi Grosglik and Liron Shani
Contrary to the latest environmental thinking in the world, the hierarchical environmental policy dictated by the State of Israel in the Carmel Mountains caused the identification of the forest as a distinct Zionist symbol. This lead to physical and social alienation of the residents of the two Druze villages, as their lands were gradually expropriated. In this article, I argue that the basis of relations between the state and the residents was and remains a permanent hierarchical relationship. Under the influence of militaristic culture and policy, and in spite of imaginary narratives, promoted by the state, the relationship was presented as mutual reciprocity based on shared duties. These narratives are being recently reinterpreted as residents' voices and actions challenge such constructions. This creates a new value for the forest, hoping to regain space for the adoption of a more egalitarian environmental policy. At the same time, the forest becomes a symbolic field in which new identities and statuses within the state are formed.
Turning Garbage into Waste: Anthropological Notes on Household Trash Surveys in Israel
A physical waste survey is the practice of sampling and measuring household garbage, in order to estimate how much trash citizens are throwing out as well as how well they are cooperating with recycling policy. This paper, which is based on fieldwork as a trash surveyor at a leading environmental consulting firm in Israel, argues that the surveys also innovate trash as an object of environmental, scientific and ethical concern. The paper brings ethnographic evidence on the embodied, discursive and material aspects of waste surveys to illustrate how this process takes place and to problematize it. Findings are analyzed in relation to theories of classification and the politics of technology from Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature.
Leaving Paradise: Environmentalism and Peacebuilding in the Sinai Peninsula
The article analyzes the environment, environmentalism and peace nexus as was manifested in the Sinai Peninsula during the Israeli-Egyptian peace process between 1977 and 1983. It focuses on efforts to advocate nature conservation in Sinai that were taken by Israeli, Egyptian and international conservationists. The research advances the environmental historiography of the region but its main contribution is providing supporting evidences and several theoretical modifications to the environmental peacemaking writings. It discusses the opportunities for environmental and political changes that opened during this post-conflict period and the role of environmentalists as peacemakers. It demonstrates how the advocacy actions contributed to the foundations of the Egyptian environmentalism, which manifested also in an improvement of the environmental situation in Sinai, that in its turn affected cross-border tourism and peace.
The Spaces Between Nature and Culture: Anthropological Perspective on the "Open Space" in Israel
The relationship between nature and culture is a key topic of study for anthropology and social science. In Israel, the approach that sees nature and cultures as separate influences social, economic, and political discussions. The struggle over open spaces in Israel - one of the more prominent issues in planning and environmental discussions in Israel today — provides a case study to examine this separation and the conflicts around it. In this article, I present the development of the concept of "open space", both globally and in Israel. Drawing on ethnographic research on the meeting places and conflict points between agriculture and environmentalism in the Arava in Sharon regions, I examine the different uses of the “open space” concept, as well as the objections it elicits. The paper points to the challenge the “open space” concept poses to approaches that depict the separation of nature and culture as no longer relevant for social research. I argue that analyzing different conceptions of the boundary between nature and culture provides a better understanding of social and environmental struggles, and of the relations between environment and society.
Between Cultures of Natures and Communities of Knowledge: Expert Knowledge and Local Knowledge Regarding Perceptions of Mount Carmel Forest | Hagit Zimroni, Efrat Eizenberg and Daniel Orenstein
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the study of the relationship between humans and their environment. While ecological approaches conceptualize the benefits provided ecosystems, they are not equipped to explain the ways that people perceive and interpret those environments. This research seeks to fill this gap by using a social perspective for the study of human-environment systems, which focuses on the social construction of meanings attributed to natural environments, and emphasizes the diversity of cultural perceptions regarding nature. Based on empirical research exploring perceptions of users of forested landscapes on Mount Carmel, we identify contested discourses among the environmental scientists and the public (Jews as well as Druze). We suggest a new understanding regarding the concept of cultural ecosystem services, in relation to expert and local knowledge in cultures of conflictual contexts.
Environmental (in)Justice: CO2e Emissions from Food Consumption in Israel by Socio-Economic Standing
The first generation of research into the nexus between environmental degradation and social issues focused primarily on the vulnerabilities of weaker, poorer, peripheral communities, not least indigenous and ethnic minorities, to environmental harms. Recent research into climate change, which yielded growing awareness of climate (in)justice, exposed significant disparities between countries in terms of exposure to the dangers of the Post Normal Climate Condition (PNCC). It also focused more attention on differentiated responsibilities which different countries have for the creation of the climate crisis in the first place. This article, which examines greenhouse gas emissions associated with food consumption in Israel at household level, clearly focuses on responsibility. Unlike inquiries into differentiated responsibility of countries, our comparison is intrastate, focusing on socio-economic standing. Based on a methodology adjusted to Israel, our findings reveal that when it comes to per-capita emissions from food consumption, there are meaningful disparities between households of different income deciles. A pioneering analysis of this nexus between climate change and social inequality, the article exposes some of the empirical difficulties associated with this kind of research. If research into this issue in Israel and beyond is to fulfill its scientific and policy potential, statistical data collection and analysis must adequately overcome these methodological obstacles.
The limited effectiveness of Environmental Education (EE) in promoting conceptual and behavioral change preoccupies scholars and activists alike. A central process in this field is that of privatization, which takes place through integrating external programs in school curricula. The present article discusses the implications of this process on the effectiveness of EE in accomplishing its goals, the promotion of environmental justice agenda, which is considered a major target of EE. This question is examined from the viewpoint of educational workers who oversee EE at elementary public schools in Israel. Taking these workers as active social agents, we proceed from the view that the way they understand their field of action and their own place in it does not only reflect the situation in this field but plays a role in shaping it. This research is based on in-depth interviews with three groups of educational staff: EE teachers, SPNI (The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel) external instructors, and school principals. Analysis points at impaired occupational self-images, struggles over symbolic resources and weak esprit de corps. All this reflect – and accelerate – the field’s severe structural ambiguity and devaluation, to the point that it works against its own basic moral principles.
Essays:
In the Gloom of Homeland's Landscape: A journey in the footsteps of Tchernichovsky | Tamar Berger
Book Reviews:
On: Against Hybridity: Social Impasses in a Globalizing World \ Haim Hazan
On: The Social Context of Violent Behaviour: A Social Anthropological Study in an Israeli Immigrant Town \ Emanuel Marx
On: Gali Tzahal \ Oren Sofer
On: HaBurganim to In Treatment: The transformation of the drama series into art \ Noa Lavie
On: Political therapy: Psychotherapy between the personal and the political \ Nissim Avissar
On: The New Mizrahi Narrative in Israel \ Arie Kizel
On: Love is not Praktish: The Israeli Look at Germany \ Gad Yair
On: “Russians” in Israel: The Pragmatics of Culture in Migration \ Julia Lerner and Rivka Feldhay (eds.)
On: The Valley of the Shadow of Death − The Holocaust Experience from a Multidisciplinary Perspective \ Niza Davidovitch and Dan Soen (eds.)
On: Education, Society and Justice \ Clara Sabag and Liat Bieberman-Shalev
On: Israeli-Palestinian Activism: Shifting Paradigms \ Alexander Koensler
On: Hearing Black: Black music and identity among young Ethiopians in Israel \ David Retner