Yifat Gutman<\/strong> has a Ph.D. (2012) in Sociology from the New School for Social Research in New York and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Davis Institute for International Relations and the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research has focused on peace activism and the politics of commemoration in a transnational context, as well as on conflict resolution and political culture. She has published peer-reviewed articles in the journals Parallax<\/em>, Memory Studies<\/em>, and the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society<\/em>, among others, and co-edited a special journal issue on memories of terrorism and political violence (BSTPA 2\/2, May 2010), and the volume Memory and the Future: Transnational politics, ethics and society<\/em> (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).<\/p>\n Yifat’s dissertation research examined how globally-circulating expert ideas and models for reconciliation are implemented by NGOs. Based in Israel, Yifat studied how peace activists deployed post-conflict<\/em> discourse and tools during conflict<\/em> from the early 2000’s. As part of this research, Yifat developed the concept of \u201cmemory activism,\u201d or the grassroots commemoration of a contested past to influence public debate, often in the service of democratic politics, human rights, and transitional justice. Memory activists use commemorative and cultural forms such as tours, testimonies, mapping, and exhibits, to give visibility to a contested past in their own society. In the Israeli case, Israeli and Palestinian citizens appropriated and redeployed hegemonic forms and practices – tours and testimonies \u2013 to disseminate contested Palestinian memories and alternative claims about the conflict\u2019s past and future.<\/p>\n During her postdoctoral fellowship at Hebrew University of Jerusalem Yifat began to expand her research beyond the Israeli-Palestinian case study and in comparative perspective. With a research grant from the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University, Yifat initiated in 2012-2013 a study of the role of memory activism in reconciliation processes in comparative perspective (conflict vs. post-conflict cases). The project commenced with an examination of grass-roots commemoration in post-WWII, post-Soviet Central Europe, focusing on Poland and the former Sudetenland.<\/p>\n
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