Oren Yiftachel

Prof. Yiftachel teaches urban studies and political geography at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba. His research has focused on critical understandings of the relations between space, power and conflict, with particular attention to ethnic, social and urban aspects of these relations.

He published over 100 articles and ten authored and co-edited books, including Planning a Mixed Region in Israel (1992), Planning as Control: Policy and Resistance in Divided Societies (1995), Israelis in Conflict (2004), Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine (2006), and Indigenous (in)Justice (co-author, 2012 forthcoming).

At BGU, Yiftachel held a range of positions, including Head of Dept. (1999-2003), Head of Faculty research committee (2003-2005) and Head of senate conference committee (2005-2007). He has founded and chaired the new program for MA in urban and regional planning at the Geography Dept. Still at BGU, Yiftachel was the founding editor of the journal Hagar: Studies in Culture, Politics and Place.

Yiftachel now serves on the editorial boards of seven international journals, including top ranking journals such as Urban Studies, Society and Space and IJMS. He is an essay editor in the journal Planning Theory and a contributing editor of MERIP. He has taught as guest professor at a range of universities including Melbourne, Curtin, Columbia, Penn, Berkeley, Venezia, Calcutta and Cape Town.

Yiftachel has been an activist in a wide range of human rights and social organizations, including the RCUV – council for unrecognized Bedouin villages, and Adva – center for social equality. He is currently the chair of one of Israel’s largest NGO – B’Tselem – monitoring human rights violations in the Palestinian Territories. He has been a team member in the planning projects Israel 2020, and in devising plans for Beersheba, Kibbutz movements and Bedouin villages.