I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at Scuola Normale Superiore (Italy) working as part of the Horizon Europe Project CIDAPE (Climate, Inequality, and Democratic Action: The Force of Political Emotions), conducting go-along walking interviews and deliberative focus groups in the Italian rural setting. I hold a PhD in Social Sciences at the University of Padova, with a focus on social movements, urban space, and identity politics. Previously, I have also completed a PhD in Political Science and International Relations at Sabanci University (Istanbul), investigating the intersection of human rights and security. I have had the chance to be part of University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Otago (New Zealand) as a visiting researcher. I have worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher previously at the University of Milan (2022-2025) and in a joint project conducted by Sabanci University and KU Leuven, entitled "Assessing interdependence between the European Union and Turkey: Policies and cooperation in regional and global governance" (2015-2017).

 

Among my contributions in various academic journals, I am also the author of the monographs Counter-terrorism and the Prospects of Human Rights: Securitizing Difference and Dissent published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2017, and The Hostile City of Love and Antibodies of Hate: Urban Contestations of Identity and Belonging published by Brill in 2024. Given my interdisciplinary background, my research interests include qualitative and visual social research, social movements and space, urban studies, the populist right and the far-right, and identity politics. In my research, I employ a rich variety of qualitative research methods including discourse and frame analysis, ethnographic participatory methods, qualitative interviews, online ethnography, visual and walking methods, focus group and other creative methods.