Women, Religion and the state in Israel

Key information

Date
Time
5:30 PM to 7:00 PM
Venue
Russell Square: College Buildings
Room
Khalili Lecture Theatre (KLT)
Event type
Lecture

About this event

Professor Nira Yuval-Davis (SOAS)

Book a place

Abstract

The lecture outlines the Zionist project and its relationship with the Jewish religion and then how this was institutionalized and transformed in different periods in the history of the state of Israel, focusing on the transformation of Israel into an (atypical) neo-liberal state. The lecture then turns to explore the gendered implications of this relationship, especially some of the differential ways it affects women in different sectors of the Israeli society.

Biography

Nira Yuval-Davis is Professor Emeritus, Honorary Director of the Research Centre on Migration, Refugees and Belonging (CMRB) at the University of East London and a Professorial Associated Researcher at the Centre for Gender Studies at the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS), University of London. A diasporic Israeli socialist feminist, Nira has been active in different forums against racism and sexism in Israel and other settler colonial societies as well as in the UK and Europe. She has been the President of the Research Committee 05 (on Racism, Nationalism, Indigeneity and Ethnic Relations) of the International Sociological Association, founder member of Women Against Fundamentalism and the international research network on Women In Militarized Conflict Zones and has acted as a consultant for various UN and human rights organisations. She has won the 2018 International Sociological Association Distinguished Award for Excellence in Research and Practice. The article she has written with G. Wemyss and K. Cassidy on ‘Everyday Bordering, Belonging and the Reorientation of British Immigration Legislation’, Sociology , 52(2), has won the 2019 Sage Sociology Award for Excellence and Innovation. Nira Yuval-Davis has written widely on intersected gendered nationalisms, racisms, fundamentalisms, citizenships, identities, belonging/s and everyday bordering. Among her books Woman-Nation-State , 1989, Racialized Boundaries , 1992, Unsettling Settler Societies , 1995, Gender and Nation , 1997, The Warning Signs of Fundamentalism , 2004, The Politics of Belonging: Intersectional Contestations , 2011, Women Against Fundamentalism , 2014 and Bordering , 2019. Her works have been translated into more than ten languages.

Registration

This event is open to the public and free to attend, however registration is required. Online Registration

Chair: Dina Matar (SOAS)

Organiser: SOAS Middle East Institute

Contact email: lmei@soas.ac.uk