Dr. Yael Shmaryahu Yeshurun
Department of Politics and Government, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
My Life Before BGU:
I grew up in Jerusalem. I earned my bachelor’s degree in social work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and continued to a master’s degree in the Mandel Social Leadership MBA Program at the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management at BGU. I wrote my MA thesis in the Department of Public Policy and Administration and continued in the same department for my doctoral studies. I did a year of postdoctoral research at Bar-Ilan University and then spent three years at the University of California, San Diego through the European Union's Marie Curie Action Program.
Why BGU?
My research is by nature interdisciplinary. As a scholar of urban politics and the politics of gentrification processes, I find the Department of Politics and Government to be a conducive and open environment for research that bridges diverse fields of knowledge and blends theory with practice. I'm especially excited to join a department where the people are not only supportive and pleasant but also sharp and brilliant. Besides, Ben-Gurion University is my academic home.
My research?
I study politics from a socio-urban perspective. I use the phenomenon of gentrification – the displacement of marginalized populations due to the influx of the middle class and urban renewal in underprivileged neighborhoods – to shed new light on political processes and actors. My doctoral research focused on the settlement policies of garinim torani’im (religious Zionist groups) in Israel’s periphery and mixed cities as a case of institutional ethno-gentrification.
While gentrification is typically studied through the lens of economic logic – driven by urban development and growth – I argued that in the Israeli context of conflict, encouraging settlement by ideological middle-class groups also follows a nationalist logic of strengthening control and asserting the presence of the nation in specific spaces.
In my current research, I broaden this perspective by examining the politics of gentrification in other regimes and ethnic communities. For example, from the Barrio Logan neighborhood in San Diego, California, I learn that minority groups are not merely displaced but can also benefit from and resist gentrification through their participation in it. In a complex and fascinating process, Latino entrepreneurs and business owners act as gentrifiers in the neighborhood, yet simultaneously express solidarity with the Latino community and engage in political protest from within their business spaces. This includes political products, signs, graffiti, and the establishment of organizations.
Something that’s not in my CV:
I’m married to Elhanan and the mother of Eitan, Yiftach, and Ido. In my free time, I enjoy painting, reading poetry, gardening, and sewing.
