Irus Braverman (Buffalo, USA): Wild Legalities. Governing Nature Reserves in Palestine/Israel

Zeit: 18-20 Uhr | Online

Vortrag von Irus Braverman (Buffalo, USA) im Berlin-Brandenburger Colloquium (BBC) für Umweltgeschichte im Wintersemester 2020/21

Veranstalter des BBC für Umweltgeschichte:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU Berlin) in Kooperation mit dem Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung (ZZF Potsdam)
Organisation: Dr. Jan-Henrik Meyer (ZZF Potsdam), Dr. Astrid M. Kirchhof (HU Berlin)

Abstract:
Irus Bravermans book project concerns itself with the contemporary regulation of nature reserves and wildlife in Palestine/Israel. It employs a “more-than-human legalities” perspective to critically examine the underlying premises of Israel’s official nature protection agency. Drawing on over sixty in-depth interviews with Israeli nature officials and on direct observations of their work conducted between 2015 and 2020, the project documents the differences, as well as the slippages and even co-productions, of nature protection within and between Palestine/Israel’s 1948, 1967, and post-Oslo borders. Specifically, Braverman will show the emergence of two parallel systems of nature administration in this region. While the Israeli nature administration is depicted as highly regulated and advanced, nature and its management in the West Bank are portrayed as chaotic, illegal, and backward—a “Wild West” of sorts. Yet despite, and perhaps precisely because of, the differences between nature management in 1948-Israel and in the West Bank, the two natures feed upon and infiltrate one another. Such seepages are important for understanding Israel’s Janus-like settler colonial regime. Taking advantage of the ostensibly benign and apolitical status of nature protection, the designation of national parks and nature reserves furthers the structural goal of eliminating the natives from this landscape.

Irus Braverman is professor of law and adjunct professor of geography at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York (SUNY). Her research focuses on the relationship between law, science, and nature. Her books include Planted Flags: Trees, Land and Law in Israel/ Palestine (2009), Zooland: The Institution of Captivity (2012), Wild Life: The Institution of Nature (2015), and Coral Whisperers: Scientists on the Brink (2018). Her latest monograph, Zoo Veterinarians: Governing Care on a Diseased Planet, highlights the recent transformation that has occurred in the zoo veterinarian profession during a time of ecological crisis, and what this transformation may teach us about caring for a diseased planet.