Dr Naama Blatman
Dr Naama Blatman is a Research Theme Fellow, Urban Living & Futures and an Urban Studies Foundation postdoctoral research fellow (2020-2023). Her research applied collaborative, archival, and ethnographic methods with Indigenous communities to probe the histories, realities, and desired futures of settler colonial cities in Australia and Israel/Palestine. Over the past ten years, she has been working collaboratively with Indigenous communities in Australia and Israel/Palestine to explore experiences of living in and reclaiming settler-colonial cities. Conceptually, her research focuses on questions of property, land, mobilities, housing and Indigenous rights in cities, which are all examined through a complex spatial and temporal lens. Her research brings together the histories and contemporary realities of settler colonial urbanism to enquire about the possibilities of rewriting their futures away from colonial infra/structures. Thus, she is interested in settler colonial urbanisms as shaped by a convergence of highly localised processes and global dynamics. Before joining Western Sydney University, she held a lecturer position at The School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney, during which she was awarded the prestigious Urban Studies Foundation’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for a collaborative project with the Deerubbin Local Aboriginal Land Council. The project, titled Decolonising the Urban?, asks what the impact is of the Aboriginal land estate on urban planning development processes in Western Sydney. She is currently working on a book project based on this collaboration.
Qualifications
- Ph.D., 2019, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
- M.A., 2011, Tel-Aviv University
- B.A., 2007, Tel-Aviv University
Research Focus
- Settler colonial urbanism
- Indigenous land rights
- Housing, property, infrastructure
- Israel/Palestine
- Carceral geographies
Recent Awards and Recognition
- 2021 – Leading Insight in Urban Geography, The Annual Conference of the Institute of Australian Geographers.
- 2020 – Geographical Society of NSW, Postdoctoral Scholars Award
- 2018 – The Australian Sociological Association, Postgraduate Conference Scholarship
- 2012 – The Zin Scholarship for Outstanding Doctoral Students, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Selected Publications
Blatman, N. and Areej Sabbagh-Khoury (in print). ‘Indigenous urbanism is Israel/Palestine,’ Interventions: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Blatman-Thomas, N. (2019) ‘Reciprocal repossession: Property as Land in urban Australia.’ Antipode 55(5): 1395–1415.
Blatman-Thomas, N. and Libby Porter. (2019) ‘Placing Property: theorizing the urban from settler-colonial cities,’ International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 43(1), 30-45.
Blatman-Thomas, N. (2018) ‘Locals, not residents: a mixed experience of a Jewish city in the Galilee,’ Israeli Sociology 19(2), 52-73. [Hebrew]
Blatman-Thomas, N. (2017). ‘From Transients to Residents: urban Indigeneity in Israel and Australia.’ Journal of Historical Geography 58, 1-11.
Blatman-Thomas, N. (2017). ‘Commuting for Rights: Circular Mobilities and Regional Identities of Palestinians in a Jewish-Israeli Town.’ Geoforum 78, 22-32.
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