In memory of Dr. Avi Cordoba (1938–2020) \ Gil Eyal
The sociology of translation is examined in this essay in three contexts: the world order, the disciplinary order, and the epistemological order. In the world order, the sociology of translation is strong in the semi-peripheral countries of Europe and weak in English-speaking countries. In the disciplinary order, it is absent from the central avenue of sociology and is present in the work of sociologists inparallel fields of knowledge such as translation studies, cultural studies, postcolonial studies and anthropology. In the epistemological order, it spans a range of markers that expand the scope of the concept of translation as an image (and metaphor) and weaken its ontological status (as a praxis). A review of the sociology of translation reveals a homology between it and its object of study and invites a discussion ofthe question of representation in translation, the possibilities of translation between fields of knowledge and the relationship between language and meta-language.
How the Black Line Was Drawn: The Haredi Question in Israeli Sociology
In recent years, the study of the Haredim (the ultra-Orthodox) has become a major subfield within the sociology of Israel and the study of how Israeli society has developed. In this review article, I return to several foundational works, in particular within sociology, in the study of Haredi society in Israel. An investigation of the arguments presented in these studies, with reference to the political and social environment from which they emerged, will be helpful in understanding the origins of the imaginary “black line” that came to serve as an analytical divider between “the Haredim” and general Israeli society. It will also help us understand the transformation of the Haredim from an ideological challenge and relatively marginal object of theoretical study, into a political challenge and a prominent object of practical research. Our examination may also prove helpful in explaining why the critical trend in Israeli sociology has yet to intersect with the field of Haredi studies, the transformation of the Haredim from an ideological challenge and relatively marginal object of theoretical study, into a political challenge and a prominent object of practical research. Our examination may also prove helpful in explaining why the critical trend in Israeli sociology has yet to intersect with the field of Haredi studies,and why, as yet, there has been no methodical discussion of the power relations between the Haredim and the state/the institutions that study them.
Einat Zamwel and Orna Sasson-Levy
This article addresses the challenges of environmental subpolitics in the context of the risk society, where citizens turn to everyday individual political activism out of alienation from state politics. In particular, the paper focuses on the political practices of people who choose a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity out of environmental considerations. Recognizing the importance of space for environmentalists, the article examines how the spatial perceptions of voluntary simplifiers shape their political activism. Based on interviews with voluntary simplifiers, we demonstrate that their political views embody constant tension between three spatial scales: the global, local, and domestic. Voluntary simplifiersare motivated by concern for the global environment, but their political actionis concentrated in the domestic sphere. Between those two spatial levels, their politics remain neutral to the local Israeli context and excludes issues such as class, ethnic, gender or national inequality. For the voluntary simplifiers, locality does not involve Israeli political issues, but has a purely environmental value that is relevant everywhere. Accordingly, we argue that theirs is in fact a “non-local locality”. Indiscussing the tensions of environmental subpolitics, the article highlights the unique complexity of privatizing the political in an era of environmental risks.
“Against All Odds” – Motives of Leaders of Alternative Initiatives in Arab Education
Motivations for participation in collective action have been analyzed by scholars for several decades, due to people’s tendency to refrain from participating when they know they can enjoy its benefits even if they do not take part in it. The need to explain the development of collective action intensifies when speaking of minority groups that face ongoing state repression and difficulty mobilizing resources. However, the effect of the cost of inaction has hardly been addressed. This study defines the cost of inaction as including not only the expected loss of benefits, but also the expected loss of the unique value derived from participation in collective action, regardless of its outcome. This includes the instrumental andemotional aspects of giving up the resources invested in the action. Analyzing three parent initiatives in the education of Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel, this study shows that the development of minority collective action is related to the subjective perceptions of its leaders regarding the costs of inaction, even when they face high risks and costs.
The literature on nationhood focuses mainly on questions of collective identity formation and rarely addresses the issue of collective solidarity and how it builds on interpersonal ties. This article illustrates a new theoretical model for the study of solidarity as social club sociability by drawing on a secondary analysis of data from a case-study of the reality show Big Brother Israel. Audience participation in the show is examined both as a social club and as a collective social performance in order to explore how an emergent sense confidentiality and complicity betweenin order to explore how an emergent sense confidentiality and complicity between viewers and performers and among viewers themselves engenders feelings of collective solidarity. The shows format presents structural-interactional mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion associated with “public intimacy,” through which the audience undergoes a dual transition from strangers to friends and from spectators to participants. This shift embodies the relational dimension of confidant and the performative dimension of accomplice, both of which contribute to the experience of collective solidarity and serve to distinguish it from that of collective identity.
This article examines body image among gay Druze in Israel and the spatial and demographic variations in it by analyzing gay Druze profiles in the most popular gay site among the Israeli LGBT community – “Atraf Dating.” I argue, inline with the literature on body image, that Israeli gay Druze, as a minority within a minority group, use their body image as a tool to help them situate themselves in the heteronormative and national contexts in which they operate. This study examined 90 profiles of gay Druze who lived both inside the Druze space and outside (mainly in Jewish cities), and examined the ways they presented their bodies and their identity and the images they used to describe themselves. For comparison, 150 profiles of Jews, Muslims and Christians who were members of the site were analyzed. The analysis finds that the geographical location, age, education and level of religiosity are highly associated with body image and identity presentations as well as subjects’ openness regarding their sexuality, homosexual identity, appearance.
Nissim Leon, Rakefet Efrat Levkovich and Gal Levy
On: "Women in the Wilderness: Revolt and Refusal on the Margins of Society" by Henriette Dahan Kalev
Book Reviews
On: Modernity and the Jews in Western social thought \ Chad Alan Goldberg
On: For Marx \ Louis Althusser
On: A half century of occupation: Israel, Palestine, and the world's most intractable conflict \ Gershon Shafir
On: Israel and the apartheid: A view from within \ Honaida Ghanim (Ed.)
On: Normalizing occupation: The politics of everyday life in the West Bank settlements \ Marco Allegra, Ariel Handel, and Erez Maggor (Eds.)
On: Back stories: U.S. news production and Palestinian politics \ Amahl A. Bishara
On: Dialogue On Campus: Jews and Arabs sharing a common space \ Ariella Friedman
On: Bioethics and biopolitics in Israel: Socio-Legal, political, and empirical analysis \ Hagai Boas, Yael Hashiloni-Dolev, Nadav Davidovitch, Dani Filc, and Shai J. Lavi (Eds.)
On: The political economy of organs for transplant \ Hagai Boaz
On: Studies in the menstrual discourse in Israel \ Inbal Esther Sikorel, Smadar Noy, Inbal Wilmowski and Delilah Amir
On: Animal Wise: How We Know Animals Think and Feel \ Virginia Morell
On: Literature courtesy after football \ Amir Ben Porat