Sarai B Aharoni
Biographic Data
| ID | 245057 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sarai B Aharoni |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sarai B |
| FAMILY NAME | Aharoni |
| SIGNATURE | AHARONI S B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9096-4828 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 83 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Archives of loss: Bodies, narratives, and dead feminist peace organizations
This paper examines the archival remnants of defunct Israeli feminist peace organizations, exploring how social movements sustain memory amid erasure and political violence. Based on a collaborative feminist ethnography (2019–2021) involving archival collections and interviews with Jewish and Palestinian feminist peace activists, the study traces six defunct organizations that were active between 1987 and 2018. We argue that the fate of feminist …
Feminist vernacular security expertise and its aftermath: A dialogue during war
The article analyzes the emergence of an epistemic community of local feminist experts on disarmament. Drawing on a five-year action-oriented ethnography, it documents the learning process initiated by Life Without Guns, a joint Jewish-Palestinian feminist group of activists in Israel. The ethnographic materials demonstrate how feminist grassroots activists, defined as non-traditional security actors, use transnational vernaculars to position the…
Consensual Gender Politics under Neoliberal Restructuring: Historical and Institutional Analysis of GBV Services and Policy Agencies in Israel (1970–2017)
This study examines the proliferation and expansion of governmental and nongovernmental institutions addressing gender-based violence in Israel under neoliberal policies since the mid-1980s. Using longitudinal data from our original WPA-IL (women's policy agencies) dataset documenting GBV (gender-based violence) institutions from 1970–2017, we analyze the field's characteristics and stakeholder interactions over time. We focus particularly on hyb…
The human rights archival gap: Ethno-archiving the silencing of radical activism and Israel’s violence against Palestinian women
This article tells the story of one of the first Israeli anti-occupation groups, Women for Political Prisoners (WOFPP), through an ethnography that follows the process of re-assembling the NGO's scattered archive. The concept of ethno-archiving is used to describe the process of gathering oral histories and assembling documents from the groups' emergence phase (1988–1993). Focusing on the organisation's historical importance and its idiosyncratic…
Smaller Goals Were Achieved: Feminist Peace Archives in Israel and Communal Methods of Repair
The article engages with the potential of feminist archiving-as-activism as a communal method of repair that can enable a more responsible research agenda toward women’s resistance to armed conflict. The study is based on a local, dialogical approach and on qualitative data obtained through a series of 35 interviews with Israeli feminist peace activists, scholars and archivists and on an ethnographic survey of 11 Feminist Peace Archives (FPAs) co…
The Archival Phase in Feminist Organizations: Methodological Suggestions
The article is based on a series of interviews (61) and a multi-sited ethnography conducted during 2019-2021 which traced archival records of 20 feminist organizations in Israel: local women's peace organizations (FPAs) and Rape Crisis Centres (RCCs). We describe the study and the complex methodological concerns and meta-questions relating to the study of feminist community archives in relation to content (types of testimonials or records), metho…
Security as care: Communitarianism, social reproduction and gender in southern Israel
The article engages with feminist care theories and practices of community building in the context of armed conflict. Based on an ethnographic study (2016-2018) of the security concerns of Israeli citizens living in the Gaza Envelope and their positions regarding the siege on Gaza, we find that in this region, vernacular security is closely linked with care, social reproduction and communitarianism. Communitarian ethics is intertwined with separa…
Gender/Nationality Intersections in Attitudes Toward Gun Carry among Israeli Citizens
The study explores how nationality and gender effect attitudes on the presence, use, and misuse of guns by security forces and civilians in Israel. Using data from a national survey ( n = 721), we find that Israelis, Jews, and Arabs have more positive attitudes toward military firearms than civilian gun carry. The vast majority agree that display of military arms increases the public sense of security. Numbers are much lower regarding civilian ca…
Emotionalising national security, depoliticising the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
This study explores the growing presence of emotional terminology within Israeli popular discourses on national security, as reflected in the daily talk of Israelis living on the border with the Gaza Strip. It is based on ethnography conducted in 2016–18 as part of a multi-site, multidisciplinary study on articulations of security in frontier communities. Findings reveal that the grassroots discourse of national security is saturated with emotion…
The intimacy of power: Gender and US naval visits to Haifa port 1979–2001
Using a method of feminist historical ethnography, this article offers a microanalysis of US Sixth Fleet port calls, Rest and Recreation, and naval diplomacy in Haifa port over the period 1979–2001. The documentation of everyday civil–military encounters in the city supports the claim that in the Mediterranean context, American military expansion was welcomed both by political elites and by the general public. In this process, a politics of conse…
National populism and gendered vigilantism: The case of the Soldiers of Odin in Finland
Based on a discursive analysis of various media reports published in 2015–2018 by and about the Finnish right-wing street patrolling organization Soldiers of Odin (SOO), we explore the gendered dimension of contemporary vigilantism. We find that street patrolling as a practice of vigilantism, is justified in this case by using representations of the cityspace as a place of friction between locals and newcomers and of the street as a locus for ena…
Collective Discussion: Piecing-Up Feminist Peace Research1
Feminist peace research is an emerging field of social sciences that is transdisciplinary, intersectional, and normative—as well as transnational. Although it draws from disciplines such as peace and conflict research (in and outside of international relations [IR]) as well as feminist security studies, it also differs from them in terms of research scope and research design. Consequently, it not only provides insights on what can be termed “spec…
Who needs the Women and Peace Hypothesis? Rethinking modes of inquiry on gender and conflict in Israel/Palestine
This article considers the evolution of scholarship on the Women and Peace Hypothesis (WPH) in light of evidence obtained from longitudinal research and multilevel analysis of women’s different engagements with the question of peace as citizens/civilians, peace activists and peace negotiators in Israel/Palestine. Evidence from this case suggests that: (1) feminist scholars no longer adhere to a one-dimensional prescription of the WPH but are more…
Internal Variation in Norm Localization: Implementing Security Council Resolution 1325 in Israel
The article explores the localization process of Security Council Resolution (SCR) 1325 (Women, Peace and Security) in Israel after the Second Intifada. An analysis of four forms of interpretation developed in 2000–2010 by local and international actors: protest, political dialog, legal reforms, and transformative actions, reveals a selective localization pattern that goes far beyond conflict-related women's rights. This variation was linked to t…
The gender–culture double bind in Israeli–Palestinian peace negotiations: A narrative approach
This article investigates structural conditions for women’s inclusion/exclusion in peace negotiations by focusing on the linkage between acts of gender stereotyping and cultural framing. Through a narrative analysis of semi-structured interviews with Israeli negotiators and administrators who participated in official negotiations during the Oslo peace process, I link two recent claims about how gender may affect negotiators’ understandings of str…
Gender and “Peace Work: An Unofficial History of Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations
Unlike earlier attempts to theorize Israeli women's peace activism in civil society, this article examines the involvement of women in backstage roles of formal negotiations during the Oslo Process. On the basis of a qualitative analysis of the organizational structure and gender division of labor in Israeli negotiating bodies, I find that women were placed as midlevel negotiators and professional and legal advisors, and also served as spokeswome…
Between a gender and a feminist analysis: The case of security studies in Israel
This article argues that professional literature on national security in Israel, especially during the second Intifada (2000-4), reinforced the invisibility of a range of insecurities informing the lives of women and members of marginalized groups. The authors discuss the problematic of using 'gender' without a feminist perspective and examine the challenges of incorporating the latter into quantitative studies of security, then briefly present t…
Die Herausforderungen von Consciousness Raising im Kontext von Konflikten. Eine israelische Perspektive
AuszugDieser Beitrag beschreibt das Vorhaben einer lokalen NGO israelischer Frauen, des „Isha l’Isha-Haifa Feminist Center“, gender mainstreaming in alle Versuche der Lösung des bewaffneten israelisch-palästinensischen Konfliktes zu integrieren. Dieses Programm, das von der UN-Sicherheitsrats-Resolution 1325 inspiriert ist, möchte vor allem zwei Dinge erreichen: Erstens will es innerhalb des lokalen Diskurses zu nationaler Sicherheit Bewusstsein …
How Can I Feel for Others When I Myself Am Beaten?’ The Impact of the Armed Conflict on Women in Israel
Internal Variation in Norm Localization: Implementing Security Council Resolution 1325 in Israel
The article explores the localization process of Security Council Resolution (SCR) 1325 (Women, Peace and Security) in Israel after the Second Intifada. An analysis of four forms of interpretation developed in 2000–2010 by local and international actors: protest, political dialog, legal reforms, and transformative actions, reveals a selective localization pattern that goes far beyond conflict-related women's rights. This variation was linked to t…
Gender and “Peace Work: An Unofficial History of Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations
Unlike earlier attempts to theorize Israeli women's peace activism in civil society, this article examines the involvement of women in backstage roles of formal negotiations during the Oslo Process. On the basis of a qualitative analysis of the organizational structure and gender division of labor in Israeli negotiating bodies, I find that women were placed as midlevel negotiators and professional and legal advisors, and also served as spokeswome…
Who needs the Women and Peace Hypothesis? Rethinking modes of inquiry on gender and conflict in Israel/Palestine
This article considers the evolution of scholarship on the Women and Peace Hypothesis (WPH) in light of evidence obtained from longitudinal research and multilevel analysis of women’s different engagements with the question of peace as citizens/civilians, peace activists and peace negotiators in Israel/Palestine. Evidence from this case suggests that: (1) feminist scholars no longer adhere to a one-dimensional prescription of the WPH but are more…
Collective Discussion: Piecing-Up Feminist Peace Research1
Feminist peace research is an emerging field of social sciences that is transdisciplinary, intersectional, and normative—as well as transnational. Although it draws from disciplines such as peace and conflict research (in and outside of international relations [IR]) as well as feminist security studies, it also differs from them in terms of research scope and research design. Consequently, it not only provides insights on what can be termed “spec…
The gender–culture double bind in Israeli–Palestinian peace negotiations: A narrative approach
This article investigates structural conditions for women’s inclusion/exclusion in peace negotiations by focusing on the linkage between acts of gender stereotyping and cultural framing. Through a narrative analysis of semi-structured interviews with Israeli negotiators and administrators who participated in official negotiations during the Oslo peace process, I link two recent claims about how gender may affect negotiators’ understandings of str…
How Can I Feel for Others When I Myself Am Beaten?’ The Impact of the Armed Conflict on Women in Israel
Security as care: Communitarianism, social reproduction and gender in southern Israel
The article engages with feminist care theories and practices of community building in the context of armed conflict. Based on an ethnographic study (2016-2018) of the security concerns of Israeli citizens living in the Gaza Envelope and their positions regarding the siege on Gaza, we find that in this region, vernacular security is closely linked with care, social reproduction and communitarianism. Communitarian ethics is intertwined with separa…
National populism and gendered vigilantism: The case of the Soldiers of Odin in Finland
Based on a discursive analysis of various media reports published in 2015–2018 by and about the Finnish right-wing street patrolling organization Soldiers of Odin (SOO), we explore the gendered dimension of contemporary vigilantism. We find that street patrolling as a practice of vigilantism, is justified in this case by using representations of the cityspace as a place of friction between locals and newcomers and of the street as a locus for ena…
Emotionalising national security, depoliticising the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
This study explores the growing presence of emotional terminology within Israeli popular discourses on national security, as reflected in the daily talk of Israelis living on the border with the Gaza Strip. It is based on ethnography conducted in 2016–18 as part of a multi-site, multidisciplinary study on articulations of security in frontier communities. Findings reveal that the grassroots discourse of national security is saturated with emotion…
Between a gender and a feminist analysis: The case of security studies in Israel
This article argues that professional literature on national security in Israel, especially during the second Intifada (2000-4), reinforced the invisibility of a range of insecurities informing the lives of women and members of marginalized groups. The authors discuss the problematic of using 'gender' without a feminist perspective and examine the challenges of incorporating the latter into quantitative studies of security, then briefly present t…
The human rights archival gap: Ethno-archiving the silencing of radical activism and Israel’s violence against Palestinian women
This article tells the story of one of the first Israeli anti-occupation groups, Women for Political Prisoners (WOFPP), through an ethnography that follows the process of re-assembling the NGO's scattered archive. The concept of ethno-archiving is used to describe the process of gathering oral histories and assembling documents from the groups' emergence phase (1988–1993). Focusing on the organisation's historical importance and its idiosyncratic…
Gender/Nationality Intersections in Attitudes Toward Gun Carry among Israeli Citizens
The study explores how nationality and gender effect attitudes on the presence, use, and misuse of guns by security forces and civilians in Israel. Using data from a national survey ( n = 721), we find that Israelis, Jews, and Arabs have more positive attitudes toward military firearms than civilian gun carry. The vast majority agree that display of military arms increases the public sense of security. Numbers are much lower regarding civilian ca…
Feminist vernacular security expertise and its aftermath: A dialogue during war
The article analyzes the emergence of an epistemic community of local feminist experts on disarmament. Drawing on a five-year action-oriented ethnography, it documents the learning process initiated by Life Without Guns, a joint Jewish-Palestinian feminist group of activists in Israel. The ethnographic materials demonstrate how feminist grassroots activists, defined as non-traditional security actors, use transnational vernaculars to position the…
The Archival Phase in Feminist Organizations: Methodological Suggestions
The article is based on a series of interviews (61) and a multi-sited ethnography conducted during 2019-2021 which traced archival records of 20 feminist organizations in Israel: local women's peace organizations (FPAs) and Rape Crisis Centres (RCCs). We describe the study and the complex methodological concerns and meta-questions relating to the study of feminist community archives in relation to content (types of testimonials or records), metho…
How Can I Feel for Others When I Myself Am Beaten?’ The Impact of the Armed Conflict on Women in Israel
Die Herausforderungen von Consciousness Raising im Kontext von Konflikten. Eine israelische Perspektive
AuszugDieser Beitrag beschreibt das Vorhaben einer lokalen NGO israelischer Frauen, des „Isha l’Isha-Haifa Feminist Center“, gender mainstreaming in alle Versuche der Lösung des bewaffneten israelisch-palästinensischen Konfliktes zu integrieren. Dieses Programm, das von der UN-Sicherheitsrats-Resolution 1325 inspiriert ist, möchte vor allem zwei Dinge erreichen: Erstens will es innerhalb des lokalen Diskurses zu nationaler Sicherheit Bewusstsein …
Gender and “Peace Work: An Unofficial History of Israeli-Palestinian Peace Negotiations
Unlike earlier attempts to theorize Israeli women's peace activism in civil society, this article examines the involvement of women in backstage roles of formal negotiations during the Oslo Process. On the basis of a qualitative analysis of the organizational structure and gender division of labor in Israeli negotiating bodies, I find that women were placed as midlevel negotiators and professional and legal advisors, and also served as spokeswome…
Between a gender and a feminist analysis: The case of security studies in Israel
This article argues that professional literature on national security in Israel, especially during the second Intifada (2000-4), reinforced the invisibility of a range of insecurities informing the lives of women and members of marginalized groups. The authors discuss the problematic of using 'gender' without a feminist perspective and examine the challenges of incorporating the latter into quantitative studies of security, then briefly present t…
Internal Variation in Norm Localization: Implementing Security Council Resolution 1325 in Israel
The article explores the localization process of Security Council Resolution (SCR) 1325 (Women, Peace and Security) in Israel after the Second Intifada. An analysis of four forms of interpretation developed in 2000–2010 by local and international actors: protest, political dialog, legal reforms, and transformative actions, reveals a selective localization pattern that goes far beyond conflict-related women's rights. This variation was linked to t…
The gender–culture double bind in Israeli–Palestinian peace negotiations: A narrative approach
This article investigates structural conditions for women’s inclusion/exclusion in peace negotiations by focusing on the linkage between acts of gender stereotyping and cultural framing. Through a narrative analysis of semi-structured interviews with Israeli negotiators and administrators who participated in official negotiations during the Oslo peace process, I link two recent claims about how gender may affect negotiators’ understandings of str…
Who needs the Women and Peace Hypothesis? Rethinking modes of inquiry on gender and conflict in Israel/Palestine
This article considers the evolution of scholarship on the Women and Peace Hypothesis (WPH) in light of evidence obtained from longitudinal research and multilevel analysis of women’s different engagements with the question of peace as citizens/civilians, peace activists and peace negotiators in Israel/Palestine. Evidence from this case suggests that: (1) feminist scholars no longer adhere to a one-dimensional prescription of the WPH but are more…
The intimacy of power: Gender and US naval visits to Haifa port 1979–2001
Using a method of feminist historical ethnography, this article offers a microanalysis of US Sixth Fleet port calls, Rest and Recreation, and naval diplomacy in Haifa port over the period 1979–2001. The documentation of everyday civil–military encounters in the city supports the claim that in the Mediterranean context, American military expansion was welcomed both by political elites and by the general public. In this process, a politics of conse…
National populism and gendered vigilantism: The case of the Soldiers of Odin in Finland
Based on a discursive analysis of various media reports published in 2015–2018 by and about the Finnish right-wing street patrolling organization Soldiers of Odin (SOO), we explore the gendered dimension of contemporary vigilantism. We find that street patrolling as a practice of vigilantism, is justified in this case by using representations of the cityspace as a place of friction between locals and newcomers and of the street as a locus for ena…
Collective Discussion: Piecing-Up Feminist Peace Research1
Feminist peace research is an emerging field of social sciences that is transdisciplinary, intersectional, and normative—as well as transnational. Although it draws from disciplines such as peace and conflict research (in and outside of international relations [IR]) as well as feminist security studies, it also differs from them in terms of research scope and research design. Consequently, it not only provides insights on what can be termed “spec…
Emotionalising national security, depoliticising the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
This study explores the growing presence of emotional terminology within Israeli popular discourses on national security, as reflected in the daily talk of Israelis living on the border with the Gaza Strip. It is based on ethnography conducted in 2016–18 as part of a multi-site, multidisciplinary study on articulations of security in frontier communities. Findings reveal that the grassroots discourse of national security is saturated with emotion…
Security as care: Communitarianism, social reproduction and gender in southern Israel
The article engages with feminist care theories and practices of community building in the context of armed conflict. Based on an ethnographic study (2016-2018) of the security concerns of Israeli citizens living in the Gaza Envelope and their positions regarding the siege on Gaza, we find that in this region, vernacular security is closely linked with care, social reproduction and communitarianism. Communitarian ethics is intertwined with separa…
Gender/Nationality Intersections in Attitudes Toward Gun Carry among Israeli Citizens
The study explores how nationality and gender effect attitudes on the presence, use, and misuse of guns by security forces and civilians in Israel. Using data from a national survey ( n = 721), we find that Israelis, Jews, and Arabs have more positive attitudes toward military firearms than civilian gun carry. The vast majority agree that display of military arms increases the public sense of security. Numbers are much lower regarding civilian ca…
The human rights archival gap: Ethno-archiving the silencing of radical activism and Israel’s violence against Palestinian women
This article tells the story of one of the first Israeli anti-occupation groups, Women for Political Prisoners (WOFPP), through an ethnography that follows the process of re-assembling the NGO's scattered archive. The concept of ethno-archiving is used to describe the process of gathering oral histories and assembling documents from the groups' emergence phase (1988–1993). Focusing on the organisation's historical importance and its idiosyncratic…
Smaller Goals Were Achieved: Feminist Peace Archives in Israel and Communal Methods of Repair
The article engages with the potential of feminist archiving-as-activism as a communal method of repair that can enable a more responsible research agenda toward women’s resistance to armed conflict. The study is based on a local, dialogical approach and on qualitative data obtained through a series of 35 interviews with Israeli feminist peace activists, scholars and archivists and on an ethnographic survey of 11 Feminist Peace Archives (FPAs) co…
The Archival Phase in Feminist Organizations: Methodological Suggestions
The article is based on a series of interviews (61) and a multi-sited ethnography conducted during 2019-2021 which traced archival records of 20 feminist organizations in Israel: local women's peace organizations (FPAs) and Rape Crisis Centres (RCCs). We describe the study and the complex methodological concerns and meta-questions relating to the study of feminist community archives in relation to content (types of testimonials or records), metho…
Feminist vernacular security expertise and its aftermath: A dialogue during war
The article analyzes the emergence of an epistemic community of local feminist experts on disarmament. Drawing on a five-year action-oriented ethnography, it documents the learning process initiated by Life Without Guns, a joint Jewish-Palestinian feminist group of activists in Israel. The ethnographic materials demonstrate how feminist grassroots activists, defined as non-traditional security actors, use transnational vernaculars to position the…
Consensual Gender Politics under Neoliberal Restructuring: Historical and Institutional Analysis of GBV Services and Policy Agencies in Israel (1970–2017)
This study examines the proliferation and expansion of governmental and nongovernmental institutions addressing gender-based violence in Israel under neoliberal policies since the mid-1980s. Using longitudinal data from our original WPA-IL (women's policy agencies) dataset documenting GBV (gender-based violence) institutions from 1970–2017, we analyze the field's characteristics and stakeholder interactions over time. We focus particularly on hyb…
Archives of loss: Bodies, narratives, and dead feminist peace organizations
This paper examines the archival remnants of defunct Israeli feminist peace organizations, exploring how social movements sustain memory amid erasure and political violence. Based on a collaborative feminist ethnography (2019–2021) involving archival collections and interviews with Jewish and Palestinian feminist peace activists, the study traces six defunct organizations that were active between 1987 and 2018. We argue that the fate of feminist …
Gender, Security, and Conflict (15 works) · Political science (15 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Criminology (4 works)