Research

My research focuses on the politics of reproduction and of genital alteration

I am particularly interested in the history and politics of reproduction in Israel. My research, which draws on an array of archival documents and interviews with policymakers and practitioners, argues that reproductive health policies in Israel have constituted a war of the wombs: A conflict between competing political parties and philosophies inside Israel that pits religious pro-natalists and those concerned about the long-term demographic consequences of the Jewish-Muslim Arab fertility differential against those concerned about the welfare implications of unrestrained fertility, as well as feminists resisting attempts to turn women's wombs into national vessels. As such, my research adds to the literature on how the most seemingly intimate decisions connected to women's bodies have become contested sites.

General Research Interests:

  • Gender
  • Abortion
  • Contraception
  • Assisted reproductive technologies  
  • Genital Alteration
  • Infant feeding 
  • Biopolitics
  • Nationalism and colonialism
  • Israel  
  • The Israeli-Palestinian conflict 
  • Zionism  
  • Palestinian nationalism