Dr Sharri Plonski, PhD (SOAS/University of London)

Profile

I am a product of multiple transgenerational colonialities that link the practices of conquest, empire, settlement and migration in Eastern Europe, Palestine, Canada and the UK. My work, which is concerned with settler colonial relations, anti-colonial struggles, border dynamics and material infrastructures, has been shaped (albeit not determined) by the world I come from and the positions of privilege and otherness I inhabit. My teaching and research are primarily anchored in the case of Israel/Palestine and its regional and global relations; but I am also avidly working with a collective of researchers, activists and thinkers who are concerned with (ongoing) settler colonial relations as both international and place-based, material and ideational, structural and agentive. From 2019-2022, I will be the Principle Investigator on an ESRC New Investigator Grant, “From Walls to Corridors: The Global Logistics of the HaEmek Railway”.

Teaching

I will not be teaching in 2019/2020.

Undergraduate Teaching

POL109 Global Histories

POL241 War and Security in World Politics

POL244 The International Politics of the Developing World

Postgraduate Teaching

Sian Adey Cilia (2^nd Supervisor)

Project: Democratic Confederalism and Kurdish Women in the European Diaspora: The Transformative Role of Solidarity

I’m happy to support students developing projects on indigenous politics and settler colonialism, anti-colonial struggles/movements, infrastructure and materiality, Palestine/Israel and the Middle East as/and international politics

I’m also happy to talk to you about your project if you’re not sure if it fits my interests.

Research

Research Interests:

• Infrastructure, Materiality, Physical Space, Borders and Borderlands
• Palestine/Israel as part of regional and global relations
• Critical Indigenous politics, struggles and scholarship
• Settler colonialism and anti-colonial movements

Examples of research funding:

2019 – 2022: ESRC New Investigator Grant, “From Walls to Corridors: The Global Logistics of Israel's HaEmek Railway”, £294,000.

2016-2017: Council for British Research in the Levant Pilot Project Grant (CBRL), “Resistance in Borderlands: the Ambiguities of De-colonisation in Israel/Palestine” £4070

2010-2014: Social Sciencies and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Award, in support of my PhD project, “Ordinary and Extraordinary Resistances: The Struggle for Land and Space by Palestinian Citizens of Israel”, $80,000

2017 – Present: Course Convener/Trainer, “Understanding Israel, Palestine and the Middle East Peace Process”, London Middle East Institute/SOAS: one-day academic trainings for UK Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO), London (courses to be delivered three times/year until 2020).

2016 – 2018: Lead Co-editor and Project Coordinator, Accord Insight 4: “Borderlands and Peacebuilding: a view from the margins”, Conciliation Resources, 2018: https://www.c-r.org/resources/borderlands-and-peacebuilding

2012 – 2015 : Israeli Strategic Forum Project Coordinator, Middle East Programme Team, Oxford Research Group, London/Jerusalem

2007 – 2010: Director of Resource Development (for Legal Advocacy on Palestinian Human Rights), HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, East Jerusalem

Publications

Monograph

2018 Palestinian Citizens of Israel: Power, Resistance and the Struggle for Space. London: SOAS Palestine Studies Book Series, I.B. Tauris

Articles and working papers

2019 (with Hawari, Y. and Weizman, E.) “Knowing Israel through Palestine: Knowledge Production as Anti-Colonial Praxis”.  Settler Colonial Studies (Special issue: “Settlers and Citizens: A Critical View of Israeli Society”), eds Y. Hawari, S. Plonski and E. Weizman

2018 “Material Footprints: The Struggle for Borders by Bedouin-Palestinians in Israel”, Antipode, 50(5).

2018 (with Walter, O.) “Conflict and Peace in the Borderlands”. In: Accord Insight 4: “Borderlands and Peacebuilding: a view from the margins”, Conciliation Resources.

2017 (with Meehan, P.) ‘Brokering the Margins: A Review of Concepts and Methods’, Working Paper for Borderlands, Brokers and Peacebuilding in Nepal and Sri Lanka:  http://www.borderlandsasia.org/

2017 (with Meehan, P.) ‘Border Lexicons’, Working Paper for Borderlands, Brokers and Peacebuilding in Nepal and Sri Lanka:  http://www.borderlandsasia.org/

Supervision

I could supervise students working on the politics of infrastructure, geo-economics and critical geography, and/or critical studies of Palestine/Israel

Public Engagement

2017 – present Research Associate, London Middle East Institute, SOAS (University of London).

2016 – present Co-Editor, Accord Insight 4: “Bringing in the Margins: Peacebuilding and Transition in the Borderlands”, Conciliation Resources, London, UK

2017 – present Organising Committee, “The Border Lab”, SOAS, London

2017 – present Co-Chair, ISA Sponsored Working Group: “Unsettling’ International Relations: Knowing and Unknowing the Settler   Colonial Present”, ISA, San Francisco 

2016 – present Co-editor, “Settlers and Citizens: A Critical View of Israeli Society” [Special Issue], Settler Colonial Studies, forthcoming 2018

2016 – present Co-Coordinator, “Decolonising Knowledge Production in Settler Colonial States” Workshop and Research Laboratory, multiple locations, including: Palestine (CBRL, 2017), London (LSE, 2017), Canada (University of Toronto, 2019).

2016 – present Advisory Project Director, All 1 Collective, UK, Multiple Locations