Irus Braverman RESET Lecture: 20.5.24

In winter 2021, more than eight thousand cranes succumbed to an avian influenza (H5N1) outbreak in the Hula Valley in the northern region of Palestine-Israel and over one million chickens in the area’s coops had to be culled. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted mainly in this region, Professor Irus Braverman’s presentation will discuss the historical and socioecological conditions that have arguably enabled and exacerbated the avian outbreak, advocating for a more-than-One Health approach that is founded on acknowledging the settler colonial legacies of this place. Specifically, she will tell the story of the Zionist drying of the Hula wetlands in the 1950s for the purpose of fighting off malaria and advancing agriculture in the region—and then of Israel’s reflooding and rehabilitation of parts of the Hula in the 1990s in support of the massive annual bird migration. Throughout, Braverman will highlight the harmful ecohealth impacts of settler colonial projects, exploring these impacts through the conceptual frameworks of “more-than-One Health” and “settler ecologies.”

Bio: Irus Braverman is professor of law, adjunct professor of geography, and research professor of environment and sustainability at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her books include Zooland: The Institution of Captivity (2012), Coral Whisperers: Scientists on the Brink (2018) and Settling Nature: The Conservation Regime in Palestine-Israel (2023).