Biography:
Dr. Teff-Seker has a Ph.D. in Conflict Studies from the Hebrew University (received October 2013) and is a researcher at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning and a lecturer at the Arava Institute of Environmental Studies since 2014. Her academic interests include cultural ecosystem services, marine planning and policy, environmental education and cross-border environmental conflict and cooperation.
Research Summary:
Dr. Teff-Seker’s study at the Technion’s Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, advised by Prof. Orenstein, focuses on the assessment of Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES). In her study, she employs a novel technique of walking interviews that combines Focusing – a method developed by Eugene Gendlin that strives to extract the implicit knowledge that exists within our bodies, putting into words the non-verbal information of a person’s comprehensive experience of nature. The study, now including over 150 interviews and several partners around the world, was performed in four locations in 2017-2018: the Negev desert, Texel Island (Netherlands), Finland and Scotland. Recently (2019), a fifth location was added, on the Island of Losinj (Croatia).
Posters and Presentations
Teff-Seker, Y. and Orenstein, D.E. (2018) Walk on the Wild Side: Using Walking Interviews and Focusing to Assess Cultural Ecosystem Services. Conference Paper: 5th European Congress of Conservation Biology, Jyveskyla, Finland, June 12-15. DOI: 10.17011/conference/eccb2018/107081.
Publications
Teff-Seker, Y. (2020). “Peace and Conflict in Israeli State-Approved Textbooks: 2000-2018”. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 1-18. Published online. doi 10.1080/00220272.2020.1716392
Kosel, S., Teff-Seker, Y., Orenstein, D. & Gruner, E. “Group Identity and Political Barriers: Jordanian and Israeli Narratives of Env. Scientific Cooperation” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology (Accepted Oct. 2019).
Mackelworth, P., Teff-Seker, Y., Vega Fernandez…& Warr, S. “Geopolitics and Marine Conservation: Synergies and Conflicts”. Frontiers in Marine Science (Accepted, Oct. 2019)
Teff-Seker, Y. & Orenstein, D. E. (2019). The “Desert Experience: Evaluating the Cultural Ecosystem Services of Drylands through Walking and Focusing”. People and Nature, vol 1:2, June 2019, pp. 234-248.
Teff-Seker, Y. & Portman, M. E., Kaplan-Mintz, K. (2019). “Problem and Project Based Learning as a Tool for Environmental Education: A study of graduate planning students”, Case Studies in the Environment. April, 2019.
Teff-Seker, Y., Rubin, A., & Eiran, E. (2019). Israel’s ‘turn to the sea’ and its effect on Israeli regional policy. Israel Affairs, 25(2), 234-255.
Teff-Seker, Y., Eiran, E., & Rubin, A. (2018). Israel Turns to the Sea. Middle East Journal, 72(4), 610-630.
Teff-Seker, Y. (2017) “A Review of Environmental Planning for Oceans and Coasts: Methods, Tools, and Technologies”, Journal of Environmental Planning and Research. 38 issue: 2, page(s): 249-250.
Portman, M. E., & Teff-Seker, Y. (2017). Factors of success and failure for transboundary environmental cooperation: projects in the Gulf of Aqaba. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 19(6), 810-826.
Portman, M. & Teff-Seker, Y. (2016). Community-level environmental projects as learning tools for planners: a case study of graduate planning students. Environmental Education Research, 23(3), 415-435.
Teff-Seker, Y. & Portman, M. (2016). Stakeholder Feedback in Israel’s Marine Spatial Planning. Ecology and Environment, April 2016, 7:1. 24-32. Peer reviewed journal, In Hebrew.
Teff-Seker, Y. “Hope and Nostalgia: Representations of Arab-Jewish Relationships in Israeli Children’s Literature After 1967”, 2019. Between the Lines (In Hebrew), Vol 3 pp. 45-65. Peer reviewed journal, In Hebrew.
Dissertation
Teff-Seker, Y. (2012). The representation of the Arab-Israeli conflict in Israeli children’s literature. Ph. D. dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Book Chapters
Teff-Seker, Y. (2017) “Attitudes towards the “Other” and Jewish Israeli Identity in Israeli Schoolbooks” in: Podeh, E. and Alayan, S. Multiple Alterities: Views of Others in School Textbooks of the Middle East. (Book Chapter).
Portman, M. & Teff-Seker, Y. (2016). Remembering the Red Sea Marine Peace Park. Marine Transboundary Conservation and Protected Areas, 89-110. (Book Chapter).
Teff-Seker, Y. “Fear and Grief in Israeli Children’s Literature Before and After the Yom Kippur War: A Comparative Analysis” In: Darr, Y., Kogman T & Steiman, Y., (eds.) Children at the Head of the Camp?: Children and Youth During National Revolution and Change, Tel Aviv: Mofet Institute Press, 2010. (Book Chapter).