Research category: Distributive Justice

Dr. Hilah Segal-Klein is a researcher working at the intersection of society, environment, and politics. Her work explores how environmental practices and everyday decisions are shaped by the interplay between individuals, communities, and broader socio-political contexts. Using qualitative approaches, she focuses on the emotional, social, and identity-based dimensions of practices such as food consumption and waste, and examines what enables – or constrains – the adoption of more sustainable behaviors.

This study examines how ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) society in Israel engages with the phenomenon of the Urban Heat Island, asking how this concept is perceived, interpreted, and translated into everyday practices within a distinctive communal context. In contrast to approaches that frame responses to extreme heat as a matter of individual choice and behavior, the study adopts a community-centered perspective, in which perceptions, practices, and climate responses are mediated by communal logics, authority structures, and networks of trust.

Using a mixed-methods approach that combines in-depth interviews and a survey, the study maps how extreme heat is experienced and managed not only as a physical condition, but as part of the organization of everyday life and of neighborhood and urban space. In this context, it highlights the role of community-based knowledge brokers in shaping adaptation practices.