The research unit for studying poverty, environment and society
The research unit for studying poverty, environment and society
The Research Unit on Poverty, Environment and Society, operating in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Bar Ilan University, aims to develop the research, political and public discourse on the interface between social issues of poverty, gender-based violence, and labor market precarity, as well as emergencies, including climate disaster, environmental crisis and other extreme events known to accelerate social vulnerability.
The main research topics of the unit are: Poverty and the labor market; Environmental hazards and poverty; Climate migration and poverty; Intergenerational education and transfer of poverty; Children in poverty; Formal and informal networks of social support for those living in poverty; Intimate partner violence and poverty; Economic abuse; Gender Vulnerability and Gender Violence during Social, Environmental, and Climate Emergencies.
The crisis of public policy during the Corona epidemic (COVID-19) illustrated the extremism in the rates of poverty, gender-based violence and occupational vulnerability that occurs during a crisis. This illustration highlights the importance of developing a body of research that examines the relationship between these social phenomena and emergencies, such as the climate crisis. Contemporary knowledge about the relationship between issues of poverty, gender-based violence, and precarious in the labor market, and emergencies in environmental and climatic crisis, tends to be partial and insufficient. Creating an empirical database in these areas will allow for a specific and local understanding of these processes, in addition to the development of comparative perspectives. We therefore invite researchers to join us in the allocation of our resources for the study of these phenomena, which are relevant to our lives both today and in the future.
Along with extensive research in the field of economic and social policy, there is currently no research center in Israel that deals with the interface between social issues of living in poverty, exposure to violence and occupational vulnerability in the face of emergencies, including climatic events. In these circumstances, the accumulation processes for existing knowledge in the field are too meager and unable influence both research and public policy regarding social and environmental justice. We aim at changing the field and raise evidence-based proposals for actions.
To create a relevant body of knowledge, the research unit of Poverty, Environment and Society aims to bring together researchers from a variety of research disciplines, such as technology, engineering, planning and life sciences, and from the social sciences, sociology and anthropology, geography, social work, criminology, economics, political science, education , Psychology and more.
Objectives of the unit:
1. Promoting scientific research on poverty, environment and society and the connections between them.
2. Fostering international collaborations in the study of poverty, the environment and society.
3. Development of a policy based on scientific research at the interface between the areas of poverty, environment and society.
4. Training of researchers, policy makers and social advocators in the field
6. Encouraging interdisciplinary collaborations in the study of the interface between poverty, environment and society.
7. Establishment of an inter-university information center for projects in the field.
action directions:
1) Monitoring trends regarding poverty, environment and society and disseminating data and research on the relationship between these areas.
2) Development of practical solutions for intervention at the state and local level to reduce the vulnerability arising from the interface between poverty and the environment in Israel.
3) Promoting an in-depth understanding of the vulnerability indices for national emergencies and in particular for the climate crisis.
4) Promoting research that will focus on detailing the daily experiences and experiences in emergencies, including environmental and climate crises, of those trapped in the cycle of poverty and violence.
5) Mapping the vulnerable populations in emergencies, including environmental and climate crises, while understanding the unique barriers to coping for each population.
Unit staff:
The unit is headed by Prof. Orly Benjamin and Dr. Karni Krigel from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.
The members of the unit are:
· Dr. Nir Cohen from the Department of Geography
· Dr. Ayelet Makros from the School of Social Work
· Prof. Joseph Deutsch, from the Department of Economics
· Dr. Shira Ofer, from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology
