Prof. Oren Yiftachel teaches political and legal geography and urban planning at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersehba and is a visiting professor in the Department of Geography and the Bartlett School (DPU) at University College London. Yiftachel is the Lloyd Horst Chair in Urban Studies, and co-manages the BGUrban Laboratory.  Yiftachel served for eight years as Head of the Department of Geography and Multidisciplinary Studies and in a number of senior positions on campus. He is currently leading a research group with Prof. Erez Tzafdia on the subject of "urban displaceabilities: Lessons to Israeli Cities" and another project on the "just digital city."

 

Yiftachel's research deals with the links between identity, power and space. He has published over 150 articles / chapters and 11 books, including:

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·Ethnic Frontiers and Periphery (with A. Meir), Westview, 1997

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·Israelis in Conflict (Co-editor). SussexUniversity Press, 2005. 'Ethnocracy: Land and the Politics of Identity in Israel /Palestine', University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

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·Indigenous (In)Justice (with A. Amara and I. Abu-Saad), Harvard University Press, 2013

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·Empties Land: The Legal Geography of the Bedouin Bang (with S. Kedar and A. Amara) Stanford Uniersity Press, 2018.

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·Power and Land: From Ethnocracy to Creeping Apartheid in Israel / Palestine. Resling. 2021

 

Yiftachel is an activist in civil society and a a leader in social movements and projects: Among others,, he was a partner in the establishment of the Adva Center  tor equality and social justice;  served as board member and Chair of B'Tselem's human rights in the Palestinian Territories; participated in the team of experts of the Israeli social protest, and headed a team to prepare an alternative plan for the unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev; recently he was a co-founder of the Palestinian-Israeli peace movement "A Land for All"