|
Field
trip report (PDF format)
As part of the MEEF initiative, Yaakov Garb is advising a series
of student research projects in the region. In Israel, these include
Ilana Meallem's project examining a range of solid waste disposal
practices in Bedouin villages in the Negev, and Maya Negev's attempt
to clarify the differences in the environmental knowledge, understandings,
and experiences of children from different religious and ethnic
backgrounds, so as to enhance the multi-cultural sensitivity of
a major survey of environmental literacy in Israeli schools. In
East and West Jerusalem he and Watson Institute faculty Simone
Pulver are jointly supervising the honors thesis of Brown student,
Michaella Matt, examining the kinds of "cross-talk"
that occur between opposing narratives of Israelis and Palestinians
regarding historical macro- and micro-events, and the political
consequences of narrative fixity and flexibility. In Aqaba (Jordan),
he is working with Wurud Qupty and Samah Sultan to establish a
base-line of current shopping patterns (esp. travel patterns)
in advance of the opening of a series of out-of-town malls. And
in Southern Sinai (Egypt), he is working with Lama Dallal on the
history, status, and potential environmental impacts of the series
of partly built hotels that dot the coast from Taba to Sharm Al
Sheich. For further information about these projects, please contact
Dr. Yaakov Garb.
Brown University and the Middle East Environmental Futures Project
welcome Dr. Yaakov Garb. Dr. Garb, currently a lecturer at the
Institute of Regional and Urban Studies at Hebrew University and
Academic Director at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies,
will be joining the faculty at the Watson Institute’s Global
Environment Program this summer. Dr. Garb, who has been involved
in the MEEF project since its inception, will focus on developing
the MEEF research program and recruiting funding for the project.
As well, he will be the MEEF contact person through 2007. For
more information, contact Dr.
Yaakov Garb.
York University 's Centre for International and Security Studies
published the proceedings of the conference �Palestinian and Israeli
Environmental Narratives.� This 350 page volume contains
new, cutting-edge research about how Palestinians and Israeli
perceive and manage their natural environment. Twenty-one
contributions by leading Israeli, Palestinian, European and North
American scholars cover a wide range of pertinent topics including:
The environmental impact of the separation barrier, potential
for joint Palestinian-Israeli environmental cooperation, environmental
discourse in Israel and Palestine , and the role of environment
in Zionism and Palestinian nationalism.
For more information contact Prof. Stuart
Schoenfeld or visit the York website.
Khaldoun Rishmawi and Jad Isaac of the Applied Research Institute,
Jerusalem, and Clive Lipchin of the Arava Institute for Environmental
Studies are participating in an inter-disciplinary environmental
research project focusing on the future of the Dead Sea Basin.
Among the objectives, the project team is producing a GIS-based
database of physical, economic and social data for the basin and
surveying local populations regarding their knowledge of the basin
and associated environmental problems. The team will integrate
this information into development scenarios for the region that
will emphasize sustainable resource use and economic development
for Israel, Jordan and Palestine. The research is being conducted
within the European Commission Fifth RTD Framework Programme.
For more information, contact Khaldoun
Rishmawi or Dr. Clive Lipchin,
or visit the project website here.
MEEF participants Stuart Schoenfeld, Daniel Orenstein and Steven
Hamburg will be presenting an update on the MEEF project in two
sessions at the BRIT VII conference to be held at the Van Leer
Institute in Jerusalem in January, 2005. The first presentation
will discuss the results of the Narratives conference at York
University. The second presentation will discuss the methodological
and practical challenges of interdisciplinary, international environmental
research. Nurit Kliot and Shlomo Hasson will also be presenting
at the conference.
A conference on Palestinian and Israeli Environmental Narratives
will be held December 5-8, 2004 at York University in Toronto
. Participants will share research papers on how Israeli and Palestinian
populations interpret their natural environment and environmental
problems. For more information click here.
(pdf/27kb)
This research proposes to carry out a Palestinian/Israeli environmental
assessment of the Wadi Khalil/ Nahal Besor transboundary watershed.
This research integrates quantitative analyses of various environmental
indicators with research on public perceptions of the environment
among local populations. Both of these will be integrated into
analyses of environmental future scenarios. The full proposal
can be found here.
(pdf/404kb)
This proposal has been adopted by the �Hydrology for the Environment,
Life and Policy� (HELP) initiative of UNESCO and the World Meteorological
Association. The HELP initiative website is here
and their analysis of the Wadi Khalil/Nahal Besor proposal is
here.
Please contact Jeff Albert
for more information.
Haifa University sociologist Tally Katz-Gerro proposes to conduct
research on Israeli perceptions of environmental issues in relation
to their proximity to territorial borders and their social location.
She aims to understand how varying elements of Israelis� social
identity affect people�s perceptions of the environment and what
implications this might have for efforts to confront environmental
issues. The full proposal can be found here.
(pdf/24kb)
|
