Dr. Shahar Shoham
- Associate member of the BIM in the department „Migration in a Global Perspective“
- Research Fellow, „ChainGe Lab: (ERC) New Labour Law for a Global Value Chain Economy“
Profile
Dr. Shahar Shoham is an anthropologist specializing in labor and forced migration at the intersection of policy, lived experience, and migrant-centred research. Her doctoral research at Humboldt University's Institute for Asian and African Studies examined the Thailand-Israel migration regime, analyzing the regime's multi-scalar structures and histories from the perspective of a sending migration village in Isaan region in Thailand. Dr. Shoham is an engaged scholar with two decades of experience in advocacy work in academia and beyond. She previously directed the migrants and refugees department at Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and researched Israel's externalization policies toward refugees.
Currently, she is developing a multimodal visual anthropology project that builds on her doctoral research. This innovative work explores sending communities' significance for research and political action, returning migrants' lived experiences, and their evolving imaginaries of possible futures and change. The project follows a multimodal anthropology and feminist methodology vision, aiming to move beyond the written text by engaging with multi-sensory modes of knowledge production, the dissemination of academic research and aims to develop translocal practices to support workers' struggles for better futures. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at "ChainGE Lab: Labor Law for a Global Value Chain Economy", (ERC), and an Associated Member at the Department of Migration in Global Perspective/ Integration, Social Networks and Cultural Lifestyles at BIM.
Latest articles:
Plight of migrant laborers killed, held hostage in Middle East exposes Israel’s reliance on overseas workforce. The Conversation
Ethical considerations of ‘going public’: Public and media co-dissemination of findings with refugees. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
Crucial Yet Disavowed: Thai Migrant Farmworkers and Israel’s Migration Regime. Special Issue: Exploitative Farm Labor Migration: North American and Israeli Perspectives
Publications (selection)
- Shoham, Shahar (2025). “Songs of Heroism and Resistance”. Essay published in the catalogue for the exhibition “Bas Bablon” by artist Jonathan Omer Mizrahi, Center for Digital Art.
- Birger, Lior and Shoham, Shahar (2024). “Ethical considerations of ‘going public’: public and media co-dissemination of research findings with refugees”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50:2, 341-358
- Kurlander, Yahel, Shoham, Shahar and Kaminer, Matan. (2024)."Crucial Yet Disavowed: Three Decades of Relations between Israeli Farmers and Thai Migrant Workers". Geography Research Forum, 43, 105-128. Shoham, Shahar, Lior Birger, & Tesfalem. S. Fisaha, (2024). The afterlife of research: Reflections on co-dissemination methods in an anti-deportation struggle. In: A. Radziwinowiczówna (Ed.), Methods in deportation research: Towards the power-knowledge approach. Edward Elgar. Shoham, Shahar, Bolzman, Liat and Birger, Lior (2018). "Moving under Threats: The Treacherous Journeys of Refugees who 'Voluntary' Departed from Israel to Rwanda and Uganda and Reached Europe." In Border Criminologist Blog, Oxford Law Faculty, UK.
- Nakash Ora, Benjamin Langer, Mayaan Nagar, Shahar Shoham, Ido Lurie, Nadav Davidovitch (2015). "Exposure to traumatic experiences among asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan during migration to Israel". Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, Volume 17, Issue 4, pp 1280-1286.
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