New Article: Cohen et al, Internal Migration of Arabs in Israel

Cohen, Nir, Daniel Czamanski, and Amir Hefetz. “Internal Migration of Ethno-national Minorities: The Case of Arabs in Israel.” International Migration 53.6 (2015): 74-88.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/imig.12014

 

Abstract

Recent scholarship emphasizes differences among ethnic groups’ internal migration patterns. Yet, with few exceptions, research has focused on the Anglo-American world, neglecting experiences from other regions. This paper is part of a larger research project that studies mobility among the Arab minority in Israel and its driving forces. In this paper we examine patterns of internal migration by analysing the propensity to migrate as well as migrants’ individual and social characteristics. First, we survey the theoretical backdrop that is suggested by recent geographic literature on internal migration among ethnic and racial minorities, including native groups. Second, we contextualize the group studied, providing necessary background information on the political, socio-economic and demographic conditions of Arabs in Israel. We briefly discuss attributes that are – or have been – potential hindering factors to Arab mobility in the Jewish state. Finally, we analyse 1995 national census data at the micro scale and provide a basis for future explanations of the phenomenon. We conclude by outlying some future directions in the study of internal migration of minorities in Israel.

 

 

New Article: Rebhun and Brown, Patterns of Urban/Rural Migration in Israel

Rebhun, Uzi, David L. Brown. “Patterns and selectivities of urban/rural migration in Israel.” Demographic Research 33.5 (2015): 113-44.

 

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2015.33.5

 

Abstract

Background: Movement from one type of area to another attests to factors of distance, socioeconomic barriers, and heterogeneity. Movement between two localities of one type entails fewer and different types of changes.

Objective: We examine urban-rural migration in Israel, a country that has experienced extensive development outside of its major cities.

Methods: We first describe and compare the urban and rural migration patterns of Jews and non-Jews. However, due to the small number of non-Jewish migrants in the 2008 census data set, the explanatory analysis focuses solely on Jews, probing the characteristics of migrants and non-migrants and differentiating among the former by whether migration is between urban and rural places, or among urban or rural areas.

Results: Examination of migration over five years points to a strong tendency to change residence, often involving a change of residence type. Urban-rural migration emphasizes the importance of specific individual characteristics and reflects the impact of life course and sociodemographic characteristics. We found a favorable sociodemographic profile of persons who leave the city for rural places, and a somewhat less favorable profile of people who are likely to move in the opposite direction. Migrants who move within settlement types are also somewhat more highly selected than persons moving toward cities.

Conclusions: Urban-rural population exchanges among Jews in Israel, while generally in accord with studies in other countries, tend to be less definite with respect to educational attainment and age.

Comments: Regardless of these differences, urban-rural exchanges of Jewish population in Israel are not a random process.
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New Article: Yacobi and Pullan, Jerusalem’s Colonial Space Revisited

Yacobi, Haim and Wendy Pullan. “The Geopolitics of Neighbourhood: Jerusalem’s Colonial Space Revisited.” Geopolitics, published online, May 9, 2014.

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14650045.2013.857657

 

Abstract

This article will focus on an ongoing process of Jerusalem’s contested urban space during the last decade namely the immigration of Palestinians, mostly Israeli citizens, to “satellite neighbourhoods”, i.e. Jerusalem’s colonial neighbourhoods that were constructed after 1967. Theoretically, this paper attempts to discuss neighbourhood planning in contested cities within the framework of geopolitics. In more details, we will focus on the relevance of geopolitics to the study of neighbourhood planning, by which we mean not merely a discussion of international relations and conflict or of the roles of military acts and wars in producing space. Rather, geopolitics refers to the emergence of discourses and forces connected with the technologies of control, patterns of internal migrations by individuals and communities, and the flow of cultures and capital.