Shifra Kisch

Shifra Kisch (1966) obtained her Master’s degree in the department of Sociology and anthropology at the Tel Aviv University, after completing her MA thesis in October 2000 (magna cum laude). Her research entitled “Deaf Discourse: The social construction of deafness in a Bedouins community in the Negev” is based on fieldwork situated in a formally unrecognised Bedouin Settlement where deafness is common. By exploring the structure of dialectical hierarchies related to language and discourse and the social arrangements they entail, Kisch suggested that the reduction of a person to a single trait is contested, as reliance on translation and mediation is not exclusive to deaf people.

Previously Kisch has studied Communication Disorder Therapy (BA) and practiced as a rehabilitation therapist. This clinical experience in a multiethnic society has contributed to her interest in the cultural and social premises of clinical education, discourse and practices. In recent years she has been teaching Sociology and Anthropology of Medicine at the health professions school of the medical faculty in Tel Aviv University.

Kisch joined the Amsterdam School September 2002, following her return to the Netherlands to participate in the intensive International PhD program of the NOV, Utrecht. Her current PhD project; “Reproductive encounters”, explores Bedouin women's experiences and strategies concerning reproductive health and the inter-cultural encounters they involve. As not solely medical staff and encounters convey the cultural and political constituents of biomedicine; social policy, popular culture and lay interaction often convey various translations of biomedical assumptions and constructs.