Staff profile

In my research and writing I work closely with communities grappling with the impacts of violent conflict, emphasising creative methods and innovative collaborations.

My current research focuses on the ability of displaced communities to determine the fate of cultural heritage collections when they are denied access to ancestral land. We work with communities in Palestine and with Palestinians living in the diaspora to explore cultural sovereignty and self-determination under violent conditions of displacement, exclusion and mobility restrictions. This project, titled Occupation Debris is funded by a multi-year, large grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2024-2026) and includes collaborations with museums and cultural institutions in the UK and in Palestine. This project emerges out of earlier research focused on Arab urban space in Israel after the 1948 War. It was the subject of my first book, 'Life After Ruin: The Struggles over Israel Depopulated Arab Spaces' (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Previously, I've led a large research programme on the political and cultural history of no-man’s land. Our research documented the impact of state abandonment on lives of communities and forms of governance that serve what I describe as the "state of uncaring." This project is based on nearly a decade of research in Cyprus, Colombia, France, Palestine and Sudan, and informs my forthcoming book, 'Edges of Care: Living and Dying in No Man's Land' (University of Chicago Press, 2024).

I am committed to finding ways to make research accessible to wider audiences through creative collaborations with museums, galleries, online creative platforms, NGOs and professional bodies like the Royal Geographical Society. Portraits of No Man's Land, a series of visual storytelling, online resources and immersive documentation (VR), is the first-ever academic research project to partner with Google Arts and Culture and can be freely accessed on any device. Our work has featured in international film festivals including One World and Aesthetica. 

• Colonial & Settler Colonial Space
• Cultural and Political History
• War and Violent Conflict
• Cultural heritage
• State violence
• Middle East/North Africa History, Politics and Culture

• 2018: Editorial Board Member, Political Geography:
• 2015: Board Member, Royal Geographical Society Political Geography Research Group:

Authored book

• Leshem, N. (2016). Life After Ruin. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316584545

Book review

• Leshem, N. (online). Bloodstains on the White City: Tel Aviv’s History of Violence. H-Net Reviews, 1-3
• Leshem, N. (2022). Hagar Kotef. The Colonizing Self: Or, Home and Homelessness in Israel/Palestine. American Historical Review, 127(2), 1062-1063. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhac089

Chapter in book

• Leshem, N., & Bagelman, J. Witnessing. In Routledge Handbook of Cultural Geographies. Routledge
• Leshem, N. (2018). אנטי מחיקון : שרידות המרחב בין סלמה לכפר שלם. In Y. Schwartz, & A. Dhamsha (Eds.), שמות מקומות וזהות מרחבית בישראל-פלסטין: יחסי רוב-מיעוט, השכחה וזכרון (Place Names And Spatial Identity In Israel-Palestine: Majority-minority relations, forgetting and memory) (141-165). Resling
• Leshem, N., & Ronel, A. (2011). Towards a spatial history of Israel. In H. Yacobi, & T. Fenster (Eds.), Memory Forgetfulness and the Construction of Space (81-105). Hakibutz Hameuchad and the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
• Leshem, N. (2011). A Rough and Charmless Place: Other Spaces of History in Tel Aviv. In M. Gandy (Ed.), Urban Constellations (163-167). Jovis
• Leshem, N. (2010). Memory Activism: reclaiming spatial histories in Israel. In L. Burke, S. Faulkner, & J. Aulich (Eds.), The politics of cultural memory (158-182). Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Journal Article

• Leshem, N., & Pinkerton, A. (2019). Rethinking expeditions: On critical expeditionary practice. Progress in Human Geography, 43(3), 496-514. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132518768413
• Leshem, N. (2017). Spaces of Abandonment: Genealogies, Lives and Critical Horizons. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 35(4), 620-636. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775816683189
• Leshem, N., & Pinkerton, A. (2016). Re-inhabiting no-man's land: genealogies, political life and critical agendas. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 41(1), 41-53. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12102
• Leshem, N. (2015). “Over our dead bodies”: Placing necropolitical activism. Political Geography, 45, 34-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2014.09.003
• Leshem, N. (2013). Repopulating the emptiness: a spatial critique of ruination in Israel/Palestine. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 31(3), 522-537. https://doi.org/10.1068/d15711
• Leshem, N., & Wright, L. A. (2009). Between Art and Catastrophe. Critical Quarterly, 51(2), https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8705.2009.01868.x
• Leshem, N. (2006). Drive Beirut: The work of Richard Mosse and the iconography of war in Lebanon

Monograph

• Leshem, N. Edges of Care: Living and Dying in No Man's Land. The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226835969.001.0001

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Leshem, N. (in press). Leshem, Noam Beyond the Wall: Writing Conflict and History in Jerusalem. . 2012
• Leshem, N. (2024). States of Uncaring, Abandoned Lives. [Antipode Online]. https://antipodeonline.org/2024/03/01/states-of-uncaring-abandoned-lives/
• Leshem, N., & Bagelman, J. (2023). Unsettling 'The Settler'. [Essay]