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Alexander Koensler
[edit]Alexander Koensler (born 1977) is a social scientist and visual anthropologist who specializes in the ethnographic study of social movements and grassroot activism in Israel/Palestine and the Southern Mediterranean.
Academic career
[edit]Alexander is currently an Associate Professor (habilitated as Full Professor)[1][2] of the Anthropology of Globalization at the University of Perugia, one of the oldest universities in Europe, and a Visiting Researcher at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute (EUI), Fiesole, Italy.[2]
He has served in different faculty positions in Europe and the Middle East.
Between 2013 and 2018, as a Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland/UK, he contributed to the establishment of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, collaborating in several research projects as well with the Institute for Global Food Security. At the same time, he also taught a core model on conflict resolution, and established. He lthe the Peasant Activism Project, a multidiscpiplinary research project on social change and globalization in the Meditterranean countryside financed by the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK.[2]
After recieving his PhD from University of Siena (2009), he has held as well faculty position at University of Münster, Germany and University of Perugia, Italy. Between 2009 and 2011 he was a postdoctoral and visiting researcher at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’, Israel. During that time, he also co-taught in a program for Palestinian, Jordanian and Israeli students of the Arava Instiute for Environmental Studies.[2]
Scholarship and Ethnographic Fieldwork
[edit]His work combines recent developments in visual anthropology, ethnography, and social movement studies. Focusing in particular on emerging forms of activism, he is interested in the social production of political claims, how to illuminate the potential of “acts” in their ambiguous function of moments of rupture/reproduction and the limits and potential of peace-activism in conflicts.
He is a member of the Center for Documentary Research at Queen’s University Belfast and a co-founder with E. Apostoli Cappello the network “Anthropology and Social Movements” of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). He has presented his research and visual documentaries in conferences and invited lectures in Bucharest, Chicago, Innsbruck, Lubljana, Kratovo, San Diego, and many other places around the world.[2]
Over the course of the past two decades he has carried out extensive ethnographic fieldwork with Arab-Jewish alliances in the Israeli-Palestinian space and about the politics of recognition of Arab-Bedouin rights in the Israeli Negev desert.
In Southern Israel, Alexander las lived over several years in the Bedouin town of Rahat, a desert kibbutz, Be'er Sheva, and Ben Gurion's desert studies campus in Sede Boqer. Grown up in Germany, he also lived in Norther Ireland, Egypt, and lives now in Perugia, Italy, where he is also a bee-keeper in his spare time.[3]
Publications
[edit]Alexander has published over 30 articles and 6 books. Among them:
Books
[edit]- 2026 (forthcoming): Voices of Reason: Solidarity Activism and the Separatist Imagination, New York: SUNY Press.[4]
- 2025 (with Christine Haemmerling and Marion Naeser-Lather), Utopias of Sustainability – The Sustainability of Utopias. A Multimodal Intervention, Morlacchi University Press, Perugia (Open Access)[5]
- 2019 (with Pietro Meloni): Antropologia dell'alimentazione. Produzione, consumo, movimenti sociali. Milano: Carrocci[6]
- 2015 (monograph): Israeli-Palestinian Mobilizations: Shifting Paradigms. London: Routledge.[7]
- 2012 (co-edited with Amalia Rossi): Comprendere il dissenso. Etnografia e l’antropologia dei movimenti sociali, Morlacchi Editore, Perugia [Understanding dissent. Ethnography and the anthropology of social movements].[8]
- 2008 (monograph): Amicizie vulnerabili. Coesistenza e conflitto in Israele. Morlacchi Editore, Perugia. The volume includes a DVD.[9]
2023 Surviving in an Age of Transparency: Emancipatory Transparency-Making in Food Governance in Italy, American Anthropologist 125, 546– 558 (Open Access)
2023 [with Marion Naeser-Lather]: Fieldwork as Witnessing: Anthropological Knowledge-Making between Openness, Blind Spots, and Intervening, Anuac, 12(1), 111-126 (Open Access)
2022 [with Stefano Boni and Amalia Rossi], A Concise Look at “Militant Ethnographies: Prospects and Dilemmas“, Condition humaine / Conditions politiques, 4
2020 Prefigurative Politics in Practice. Concrete Utopias in Italy’s Food Sovereignity Activism, Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 25, 1, pp. 101-119
2019 Affective Borderlands. Experiences in Practice of the Neo-Zionist Settling Enterprise in Israel, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 48, 5, pp. 700–725
2018 Reinventing Transparency. Governance, Trust and Passion in Activism for Food Sovereignty in Italy, in: Ethnologia Europaea, 48,1, 48, 1
2017 (with Cristina Papa) L’uomo accademico flessibile: due casi a confronto, in: Anuac, 6,1, pp. 83-88
2016 Acts of Solidarity: Crossing and Reiterating Israeli-Palestinian Frontiers, in: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, no. 40, 2, pp. 340–356
2016 (with Cristina Papa) Che cosa richiede il cambiamento? Percorsi postgramsciani per un’etnografia politica della contemporaneità, in: Lares: Quadrimestrale di studi demoetnoantropologici, no. LXXXI, 2-3, pp. 407-426
2016: Islamismo e terrore: un grande Jihad contro il senso comune (essay), Anuac 4(2): 51-66.
2015: Auto-certificazioni, in: AM – Antropologia Museale, 34, pp. 29-32.
2014: Human Rights, Local Plights. Implications of Human Rights Activism for Arab-Bedouin Citizens in Israel, in: “ISCTSJ Working Papers Series” 3-14
2014: Le conflit comme performance : contestation et politique de l’espace des bédouins arabes en Israël, in: L’homme et la société, 187/188, pp. 205-226.
2012: Frictions as opportunity: mobilizing for Arab-Bedouin ethnic rights in Israel, in: Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(11), pp. 1808-1828.
2012: Insurgent Building. Spatial Practices of Resistance in the Bedouin-State Conflict in Southern Israel, in: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37(1), pp. 46–60.
2012: Studiare frizioni: attivisti, giornalisti e beduini intorno ad un “villaggio fantasma” in Israele, ANUAC Rivista, 1(2), pp. 1-24.
2011: Spielräume der Mobilisierung. Transnationale Fiedensnetzwerke in Israel seit dem Gaza-Krieg, in: Zeitschrift für Ethnologie/Journal of Ethnology 136(1), pp. 123-137.
2011 (with Cristina Papa): Political tourism in the Israeli-Palestinian space, in: Anthropology Today 27 (2), pp. 9-14.
2010: Practices of Reality. Demolitions and Reconstructions of a Ghost Village in Israel, in: Cultural Politics 6(3), pp. 357-382.
2005: Protesta e potere intorno alla costruzione di un nuovo insediamento nel deserto del Negev, in: Achab 11, 2/2005, pp. 32-38.
2016: Emerging Spheres of Resonance: “Clandestinely Genuine” Food Networks and the Challenges of Governing Sustainability in Italy, in: Envisioning Sustainabilities in Times of Disaster (a cura di Fiona Murphy and Pierre McDonagh), Cambridge Scholars Press, Cambridge.
2012 (co-authored with Amalia Rossi): Introduzione: comprendere il dissenso, in: “Comprendere il dissenso. Introduzione all’antropologia dei movimenti sociali” (ed: Alexander Koensler and Amalia Rossi), Morlacchi Editore, Perugia, pp. 13-34.
2012: Per un’antropologia dei movimenti: etnografia e paradigmi dell’analisi dei movimenti, in: “Comprendere il dissenso. Introduzione all’antropologia dei movimenti sociali” (Eds. Alexander Koensler and Amalia Rossi), Morlacchi Editore, Perugia, pp. 47-57.
2010: Cambiare il mondo e aprire il cuore? Negoziare modelli di convivenza nel Negev (Israele), in: “Saperi antropologici, media e società civile nell’Italia Contemporanea” (a cura di Luisa Faldini e Eliana Pili), CISU, Roma, pp.67-79.
2010: Coesistenza e conflitto nel deserto del Negev, in: “Miti di guerra, riti di pace” (Ed. C. Masseria e D. Loscalzo), EdiPuglia, Bari, pp.23-32.
2009: Turismo sostenibile e sostenibilità militare. Connessioni parziali intorno a un progetto di sviluppo dal basso nel deserto del Sinai, in: “Il turismo come strumento di sviluppo locale sostenibile” (Eds. Luisa Faldini et al.), Cisu, Roma, pp. 251-265.
2009: Il beduino e la tenda: un’associazione fatale. Dinamiche di protesta e potere intorno alla costruzione di un nuovo insediamento in Israele, in: “Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università degli Studi di Perugia“ 2007/08, XLV, XXXI, pp. 95-131.
2008: I muri permeabili. Un’etnografia del “sapere di frontiera” in Israele e Palestina, in: “Campo, Spazio, Territorio. Approcci antropologici” (Ed. Pier Giorgio Solinas), Ed.it, Catania, pp. 65-79.
Edited Journal
[edit]2013 (with Cristina Papa): After anthropocentrism? Environmental conflicts, social movements, and power, Journal of Political Ecology, special issue vol. 20, pp. 286-294.[11]
Documentaries
[edit]2025 The Border. Resisiting Monocrops in Italy (Italy, 40 min.)[12]
2018 (with F. Loce-Mandes): De-commodifying Foodways (Italy/UK. 70 min.)[13]
2016 (with F. Loce-Mandes): An Experimental Path (Italy/UK, 38 min.)[13]
2008: La verità liquida. La storia dell’attivismo per la terra dei beduini in Israele (Documentary, 43,00 min.), Morlacchi Editori, Perugia.
[14]
External Links:
[edit]Personal homepage: www.alexanderkoensler.com
References
[edit]- ^ "Alexander Koensler - Università degli Studi di Perugia". www.unipg.it. Retrieved 2025-11-17.
- ^ a b c d e "🌑 Alexander Koensler". www.alexanderkoensler.com. Retrieved 2025-11-17.
- ^ "🌑 Alexander Koensler". www.alexanderkoensler.com.
- ^ "Voices of Reason: Solidarity Activism and the Separatist Imagination".
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|url=(help) - ^ Utopias of Sustainability – The Sustainability of Utopias: A Multimodal Intervention. Perugia: Morlacchi UP. 2025. ISBN 9788893926041.
- ^ Koensler, Alexander; Meloni, Pietro (2019). Antropologia dell'alimentazione: Produzione, consumo, movimenti sociali. Milano. ISBN 978-8843098422.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Koensler, Alexander (2015). Israeli-Palestinian Activism: Shifting Paradigms. London, New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781317111887.
- ^ Comprendere il dissenso. Etnografia e antropologia dei movimenti sociali. Morlachhi UP. 2012. ISBN 9788860744913.
- ^ Koensler, Alexander (2008). Amicizie vulnerabili. Coesistenza e conflitto in Israele. Morlacchi. ISBN 9788860742506.
- ^ a b Koensler, Alexander. "Articles and Book Chapters".
- ^ "After anthropocentrism? Environmental conflicts, social movements and power". Journal of Political Ecology. 20 (1). doi:10.2458/v20i1.21767.
- ^ Koensler, Alexander. The Border. Resisting Monocrops in Italy.
- ^ a b Koensler, Alexander. "Documentaries".
- ^ Koensler, Alexander. Amicizie vulnerabili. Morlacchi UP.