Dr Eilat Maoz

Research Fellow, Urban Safety in a Transitional Era

  • PhD. University of Chicago, Anthropology
  • M.A. Tel Aviv University, Sociology and Anthropology
  • B.A, Tel Aviv University, History and Gender Studies

Research focus
Eilat Maoz studies and implements democratic security-making and urban conflict transformation. Drawing on a rich comparative stock of critical research and action, she develops participatory frameworks for making cities safe, creative, and egalitarian.  Recognizing momentous planetary challenges in the present era—combating inequality and fighting climate change—she turns critical insights, especially from anti-colonial theory and from the Global South, into collective action plans.
Combining ethnographic, historical, and cartographic methods, Maoz analyzes complex security regimes and multi-dimensional urban conflicts. Her dissertation, based on 18 months of ethnographic study of policing and organized crime in Jamaica, coined the term "police economy" to theorize the multi-scalar formal-informal formations of organized violence that stretch 'above' and 'below' the state. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and won the prestigious William Rainey Harper Dissertation Fellowship (2019) and the Lichtstern Dissertation Prize in Anthropology (2021).
Her first book, Living Law, was published by the Van Leer Institute in 2020, and her articles are published across academic and popular venues. She teaches classical social theory, political-economic anthropology, critical criminology, and qualitative research design, and works closely with activists, local government, and civil society.

Research focus
Eilat Maoz studies and implements democratic security-making and urban conflict transformation. Drawing on a rich comparative stock of critical research and action, she develops participatory frameworks for making cities safe, creative, and egalitarian.  Recognizing momentous planetary challenges in the present era—combating inequality and fighting climate change—she turns critical insights, especially from anti-colonial theory and from the Global South, into collective action plans. Combining ethnographic, historical, and cartographic methods, Maoz analyzes complex security regimes and multi-dimensional urban conflicts. Her dissertation, based on 18 months of ethnographic study of policing and organized crime in Jamaica, coined the term "police economy" to theorize the multi-scalar formal-informal formations of organized violence that stretch 'above' and 'below' the state. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and won the prestigious William Rainey Harper Dissertation Fellowship (2019) and the Lichtstern Dissertation Prize in Anthropology (2021).  Her first book, Living Law, was published by the Van Leer Institute in 2020, and her articles are published across academic and popular venues. She teaches classical social theory, political-economic anthropology, critical criminology, and qualitative research design, and works closely with activists, local government, and civil society.