Seminar with Irus Braverman: "Settler Ecologies: the conservation regime in Palestine-Israel"

The Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea and the Environmental Humanities Reserach Group are hosting a joint seminar with Irus Braverman to discuss her recent book, Settling Nature: The Conservation Regime in Palestine-Israel. Drawing on more than seventy interviews with Israel's nature officials and on observations of their work, this book explores the widespread ecological warfare practiced by the state of Israel. Recruited to the front lines as part of this warfare are the fallow deer, gazelles, wild asses, griffon vultures, pine trees, and cows—on the Israeli side—against the goats, camels, olive trees, hybrid goldfinches, and akkoub—on the Palestinian side. At the end of the day, the administration of nature by the state of Israel has advanced both the Zionist project of Jewish settlement and the corresponding dispossession of non-Jews from this space.

The seminar will be interactive and participants are invited to participate in the discussion on settler ecologies, interdisciplinarity, ethnography, and critical legal research.

Irus Braverman is professor of law, adjunct professor of geography, and research professor of environment and sustainability at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Beyond Settling Nature (2023), her books include Zooland: The Institution of Captivity (2012), Coral Whisperers: Scientists on the Brink (2018) and her edited books Blue Legalities (2020) and Laws of the Sea (2022).