Nir Cohen

Ph.D. Candidate, Geography & Regional Development

B.A., 1996, Psychology & Political Sciences, University of Haifa, Israel
M.A., 2000, International Affairs, Columbia University

Phone: (520) 621-1652
E-mail: ncohen@email.arizona.edu

432 Harvill Building, Box #2
Tucson, AZ 85721-0076
USA

Curriculum Vitae

Research

Broadly defined, my research interests center on the relations between transnational migrants and their sending countries, states, and societies and the ways questions of belonging and national identity are negotiated through them. An Israeli-born living in the United States, I am primarily interested in the relationship between Israel's state apparatus and its émigré communities and the cultural manifestations of these relations. In the context of my dissertation, I am trying to understand the fundamental shifts that have taken place in Israel's discourses and policies concerning émigrés (known in Hebrew as 'Yordim', those who descend). I am further exploring the role cultural practices conceived and deployed by the state are shaping migrants identities as Israeli and diasporic citizens as part of a comprehensive strategy aimed at re-territorializing them.

Project Involvement

• 'Here' and 'There', 'Now' and 'Then': Spatio-temporal Narratives in Israeli trans-migrants' social spaces. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers (APCG), Phoenix, October 2005.
• Constructing Migration, Constructing Migrants: State Discourses and Israeli Emigration. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), Chicago, March 2006.
• Ha'Bayit Ha'Yisraeli: The Social Construction of Home Away from Home. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Israel Studies (AIS), Banff, Alberta. May 2006.
• Reaching Out to the Kids: State, Culture and Second Generation Israeli Migrants. Paper to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), San Francisco, April 2007.