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Centre for Gender Studies

Katherine Natanel

BA MA

Overview

Katherine Natanel
Centre for Palestine Studies (CPS)

PhD Student Associate Member

Centre for Gender Studies

Tutor in Gender theory and the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East

Name:
Katherine Natanel
Thesis title:
Active (Dis)engagement: The Gendered Production of Political Apathy in Israel
Internal Supervisors

Biography

Katherine Natanel is a final year PhD candidate at the Centre for Gender Studies at SOAS, University of London.  For three years she has acted as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) at the Centre and currently holds a position as the GTA for Gender Theory and the Study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the MA Gender Studies core course.  Katherine’s background draws from both Women’s Studies (BA, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2001) and Near and Middle Eastern Studies (MA, SOAS, 2009), supplemented with training in Anthropological research methods.

Grants & Awards

  • Research Student Fellowship from SOAS, University of London, awarded 2009-2012
  • Overseas Research Student Award from SOAS, University of London, awarded 2009-2012
  • Additional Award for Fieldwork from SOAS, University of London, awarded 2010
  • Central Research Fund Fieldwork Grant from the University of London, awarded 2010
  • Language Acquisition Fund Training Grant from the Faculty of Languages and Cultures at SOAS, University of London, awarded 2010

PhD Research

This PhD thesis aims to unpick the relationship between gender and political stasis which frames and in part makes possible the continuing occupation of the Palestinian Territories and annexed East Jerusalem.  Based on one year of ethnographic research in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, this research project centralises the experiences, behaviours and perceptions of Jewish Israelis as everyday lives exist embedded within wider political realities.  Here ‘gender’ constitutes a political and analytical category, one capable of revealing the function of power across and within multiple levels; as such, rather than focusing solely on categories of ‘women’ or ‘men,’ this thesis considers gender as a structural relation bound with politics and the perpetuation of domination.  Moving through degrees of division and entanglement, modes of avoidance and activism, and instantiations of normalcy and rupture, this research foregrounds the gendered subjectivities and sociality central to the production and maintenance of power in Israel-Palestine.

PhD Publications

Articles

Natanel, K. (2012) ‘Resistance at the Limits: Feminist Activism and Conscientious Objection in Israel.' Feminist Review, Issue 101: Special Issue on Conflict (July 2012), pp. 78-96.

Book Reviews

(forthcoming) Natanel, K. (2013) ‘Review of Nimo’s War, Emma’s War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War by Cynthia Enloe.’  Review of Middle East Studies.

Natanel, K. (2012) ‘Review of Women in Israel: Race, Gender and Citizenship, by Nahla Abdo.” Feminist Review.

Natanel, K. (2011) ‘Review of Militarization and Violence Against Women in Conflict
Zones in the Middle East: A Palestinian Case Study, by Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian.’  International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol. 13, No. 4 (December 2011), pp. 625-627.

PhD Conferences

(forthcoming) ‘Violent Epistemologies: (Re)constructing Conflict, Agency and Power in Gender Studies Tuition’ (2013).  Paper to be presented at the International Studies Association (ISA) annual conference in San Francisco, California, April 2013.

‘Living in the Garden of Perhaps: Ordinary Life as an Obstacle to Political Change in Israel’ (2012).  Paper to be presented at the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) annual conference in Denver, Colorado, November 2012.

(forthcoming) ‘New Perspectives on Studying Gender in the Middle East’ (2012).  Thematic conversation to be conducted at the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) annual conference in Denver, Colorado, November 2012.

‘The People Demand: Sovereignty, Subjectivity, and Domination in Israel-Palestine’ (2012).  Paper presented at the British International Studies Association (BISA) annual conference in Edinburgh, June 2012

‘“The Privilege to Feel it When We Want To”: Gender and Political Apathy in Israel’ (2011).  Paper presented at the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) annual conference in Washington, D.C., December 2011.

‘Reflexive Thinking in Qualitative Gender Studies Research’ (2011).  Presentation at the MSc Gender and Development Methodology Seminar, London School of Economics and Political Science, November 2011.

‘Active Disengagement: A Gender Analysis of Political Apathy in Israel’ (2011).  Paper presented at the Ethnography and History of Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) Seminar Series, London School of Economics and Political Science, October 2011.

‘(Dis)engagement and (In)action: A Gendered Approach to Political Apathy in Israel [Preliminary Fieldwork Findings]’ (2011).  Paper presented at the Institute of Women’s Studies, Birzeit University, Occupied Palestinian Territories, September 2011.

‘Beyond ‘Women’ and ‘Men’: Using Gender to Explore Power and Politics’ (2011).  Presentation at the Centre for Gender Studies, SOAS, University of London, March 2011.

PhD Affiliations

Research

Gender and feminist theory, politics, Israel-Palestine, domination and power, political violence, affect, feminist and women’s activism, critical pedagogy, gender in the Middle East.