Smadar Ben-Natan, associate faculty and post-doctoral scholar in Israel Studies at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, has received a 2021-2022 Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar Foundation grant for the second year in a row. The $40,000 award will go toward her research on the treatment of Palestinian political prisoners in Israel, and how carceral systems in a context of conflict can either foster radicalization or further reconciliation.
The grant is a continuation of Ben-Natan’s first grant from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, also in the amount of $40,000, which was awarded in 2020-2021. Ben-Natan, whose area of study focuses on human rights, justice and law, and national security and Israel, is currently teaching a spring quarter course titled, “Comparative Carceral Studies: The U.S. and Israel” (JSIS 478F), which is jointly being offered with Law, Societies & Justice (LSJ 490A).
Ben-Natan recently returned from a field trip to Israel/Palestine where she interviewed former prisoners and former prison officials: “This will be the first research to look at Palestinian prisoners and Israeli officials under the same framework and analyze ‘carceral encounters’ between them, which are rarely visible outside prison walls,” she said.
Read more about the research in UW Notebook.