Sociology Graduate Students

Robin C Gabriel
  • Pronouns she/her
  • Title
    • Ph.D. Candidate
  • Division Social Sciences Division
  • Department
    • Sociology Department
  • Affiliations Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Feminist Studies Department
  • Email
  • Website
  • Office Location
    • Rachel Carson College Academic Building, 000
  • Mail Stop Rachel Carson College Faculty Services
  • Mailing Address
    • 1156 High St.
    • Santa Cruz California 95064

Research Interests

My dissertation, tentatively titled "Palestine in Exile: Archiving Youth Art and Activism in Diaspora" explores how Palestinian-American youth use poetry to imagine and craft alternative decolonial futures, critique colonial systems of knowledge, and organize alongside other global and local anti-colonial movements. I understand my work as at the intersection of Palestine Studies, Critical Zionism Studies, Critical Youth Studies, and Critical Refugee Studies. 

Biography, Education and Training

Ph.D., Sociology, University of California Santa Cruz (in progress, 2026)

 

M.A., Sociology, University of California Santa Cruz (2021)

 

M.A., Peace and Conflict Management Studies, University of Haifa, Occupied Palestine (2016)

 

B.A., Sociology & Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, University of Washington, Seattle (2014)

Honors, Awards and Grants

FLAS fellowship, Summer 2022

 

UCSC Regents’ Fellowship - 2019-2020

 

“Soar Award” for Outstanding Adjunct Faculty of the year, Columbia Basin College, Pasco, WA 2019

 

Faculty of the Year Nominee, Yakima Valley College, Grandview, WA 2016/17

 

Herring-Phelps Award for Scholarly Activism, University of Washington, 2014

 

 

Selected Publications

 

Gabriel, Robin (2022). “Coloniality & Necropolitics in the Age of Covid-19: The Question of Palestine” Asian Journal of Law and Society, Special Issue.

 

Hiroshi Fukurai, Robin Gabriel, and Xiaochen Liang (2022) “The COVID-19 crisis, Herd Immunity, and “Vaccine Apartheid” in the Age of Anthropocene” Asian Journal of Law and Society, Special Issue.

 

Co-editor of the special issue in The Asian Journal of Law and Society, “COVID-19 and Herd Immunity in Asia in the Age of Anthropocene”

 

Gabriel, Robin. (2021). “Book Review - Justice for Some: International Law and the Question of Palestine by Noura Erakat” Asian Journal of Law and Society, 8:1. 

Selected Presentations

Panel presentation, "Epistemologies of Witness in Exile: Diasporic Palestinian Poetry in the Wake of Al-Aqsa Flood" at the 2025 Media Fields IX Conference, "Witnessing" at the University of California Santa Barbara 

 

Panel presentation, “Shoring the Revolution: Epistemologies of Sumud and Survival through Gaza’s Beaches” with Mai Awad at the 2024 Dimensions of Political Ecology (DOPE) + Palestine conference “Palestinian Landscapes & Liberatory Ecologies” 

 

Panel presentation, “Palestine beyond the Postcolonial: Articulations of Diaspora and Decoloniality” at the 2024 International Conference on Postcolonial Studies: "Trajectories and Transitions of (Post)Colonialism" organized by London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research

Panel presentation, "The University as Front Line: Zionist Recruitment & Settler-Colonial Desires for Indigeneity" 2023 Convening of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism

Panel presentation, "The Question of Palestine: Anthropocene & Settler Colonial Necropolitics in the Era of COVID-19" at the 2021 annual Law and Society Association conference 

 

Selected Recordings

Roundtable discussion, 2024 with the Popular University for Gazaa, "From (1967) Defeat to (2024) Steadfastness: Genocide & Resistance"