I joined the University of Manchester as Research Fellow in the Sustainable Consumption Institute and Reader in Sociology in September 2016. My research addresses scholarship conducted at the crossroads of consumption, culture, environment, and inequality, with a strong emphasis on cross-national and cross-time comparisons. 

Recently I served for two terms as member of the executive committee and treasurer of the European Sociological Association; I was vice-president of the Israel Sociological Society; I co-founded a section on environment and society within the Israeli Sociological Society and I was co-coordinator of the Israel branch of the Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative (SCORAI). In the past few years I was invited as visiting professor in several universities, including the Department of Economic Sociology in Turku, where I was also appointed adjunct professor; Kyung-Hee University in Seoul; Science Po in Paris; ENSAE in Paris; University of Innsbruck and others. I was recently appointed as co-editor-in-chief of Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media, and the Arts. 

In recent years, my interests have taken several directions organized in distinct research projects that I am currently conducting:

First, a study of the intergenerational transmission of environmental attitudes and behaviours and the construction of an environmental habitus in Israel, the US, and South Korea. This research will be based on survey data and focus groups conducted with three generations in each of these countries (with Femida Handy and Itay Greenspan, funded by the US-Israel Bi-national Science Foundation).

Second, a focus on the way people use and perceive cultural services of their ecosystem. The main question we address is how people perceive their environment and what kind of activities they engage in a way that affects their wellbeing. We identify unique environmental tastes and use them to understand environmental behavior. So far this project was conducted in two settings, the Arava region in Israel and the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland (with Daniel Orenstein and Jan Dick).

Third, an interest in patterns of consumption that are conditioned by specific circumstances, such as an economic crisis or an organizational change. In recent work we discuss sustainable lifestyles from the point of view of individuals living under conditions of economic crisis in four countries in south-eastern Europe (Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia). Given this link between lifestyle practices and the economic context, we investigate whether and how strategies for coping with economic crises have consequences for sustainable consumption practices (with Predrag Cveticanin and Adrian Leguina). In another project, we employ theories of practice to understand whether and how transport companies in Portugal can promote sustainability through behavioural change at the organizational level (with Isabel Cruz).

Fourth, research on cultural consumption and social comparison. A significant part of this project revolves around a survey that we launched in summer 2012 in the United States, administered to a nationally representative sample of the American population. In this research we contribute to the literature on positional goods and subjective well-being by providing new evidence on how relative vs. absolute income, the intensity of social comparison, and the reference group for comparison, affect subjective well-being (with Art Alderson, funded by the US-Israel Bi-national Science Foundation).

Fifth, research funded by the Israel Science Foundation on cultural policy in Israel. This project provides a budget analysis of funding of the performing arts in Israel starting in 1960 and until the present. It demonstrates the priorities in public funding of culture and the way they are associated with the social makeup of Israeli society (with Tal Feder, funded by Israel Science Foundation).

Finally, research on cultural cosmopolitanism with an emphasis on engagement with alterity and situated cosmopolitanism in divided societies. This project has a comparative component, with the aim of contextualizing cosmopolitan socialization in different social settings, linking it to globalization and inequality in Israel, France, Brazil, and Korea (with Vincenzo Cicchelli, Sylvie Octobre, Viviane Riegel, and Femida Handy).

I welcome enquiries from potential PhD students who are interested the range of topics described in my research profile. You are welcome to contact me at [email protected].