Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Hila Zaban

Profile

Hila is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow. Prior to arriving at Warwick, she was a postdoctoral fellow at SOAS, University of London for two years. She studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and completed her PhD at the Ben Gurion University in Israel. Her research interests centre on privileged lifestyle migration, urban transformation, gentrification, housing, heritage, belonging and sense of place. She previously ethnographically studied a Jerusalem neighbourhood undergoing changed due to gentrification processes combined with high status immigration of Jews from Western countries.

Research

Fellowship Project

The Urban Effects of British Jews’ Transnational Practices on London and Israel

Hila’s current research project aims to promote our understanding of cities by asking how urban transformation can be understood through a transnational lens. It deals with British Jews’ transnational connections with Israel. Combining diaspora studies, lifestyle migration and urban studies, it focuses on practices located on the migration–tourism axis: second home purchase and residential tourism. These affect urban locales in Israeli cities (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in particular), but also in London, where most British Jews live. The study asks how these practices link with current affairs as well as regulatory and governance frameworks that permit overseas investment and immigration.

Publications

ARTICLES IN PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS

Zaban, H. (2017). Preserving “the Enemy’s” Architecture: Preservation and Gentrification in a Formerly Palestinian Jerusalem Neighbourhood. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 23(10), 961-976.

Zaban, H. (2017). City of Go(l)d: Spatial and Cultural Effects of High-Status Jewish Immigration from Western Countries on the Baka Neighbourhood of Jerusalem, Urban Studies, 54(7), 1539-1558 (published online in 2016).

Zaban, H. (2016). In the Name of Pluralism: Fighting the (Perceived) Ultra-Orthodox Penetration in the Neighbourhood of Baka, Jerusalem. Israel Studies, 21(3), 153-178.

Zaban, H. (2016). “Once There Were Moroccans Here—Today Americans”: Gentrification and the Real Estate Market in the Baka Neighbourhood of Jerusalem. City, 20(3), 412-427.

Zaban, H. (2015). The Effects of Lifestyle Migration of Jews from Western Countries on Jerusalem, Israel. Two Homelands, 42, 55-66.

Zaban, H. (2015). Living in a Bubble: Enclaves of Transnational Jewish Immigrants from Western Countries in Jerusalem. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 16(4), 1003-1021.

BOOK CHAPTERS

Zaban, H. (forthcoming 2017). Structure, Agency and TimeSpace in Immigrants’ Enclaves: High-Status Immigration in Jerusalem, Israel. In A. Christou, E. Mavroudi and B. Page (eds.), Timespace and Migration. Cheltenham, London: Edward Elgar Publishing

Zaban, H. (2017). Communal Identity vs. Commercial Identity: The Case Studies of Bethlehem Road and Emek Refa’im Street in Jerusalem. In A. Golan and R. Donitz Kedar (eds.), Corporate City, Corporate in the City. Tel Aviv: Resling (Hebrew)

Zaban, H. (2015). Whose Neighborhood Is It? On Civic Participation in the Planning Scheme for the Baka Neighborhood in Jerusalem. In: I. Beeri and E. Razin (eds.), Local Democracy in Israel: Decentralization, Localism, Participation and Local Politics. Jerusalem: Floersheimer Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, pp. 31-53 (Hebrew).

Zaban, H. (2013). Becoming a Local within a Bubble: Enclaves of Transnational Jewish Immigrants of Western Countries in Jerusalem. In: R. B. Blake and N.J. Walthrust Jones (eds.), Identities and Borders: Interculturalism and the Construction of Identity. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, pp. 55-66.

Zaban, H. (2013). Whose Neighbourhood Is It? On Belonging and Neighbourhood Citizenship in the Baka Neighbourhood of Jerusalem. In: A. Edelstein and M. Dugan (eds.), Migration Matters: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Pluralism, Inclusion and Citizenship. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, pp. 119-138.

zabanh.jpg