EDUCATION
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2018-2022
University of Padova
PhD in Social Sciences: Interactions, Communication, Cultural Constructions.
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Thesis: The City of Hate and Its Antibodies: Contending Place-based Identities and the Territorialization of Belonging in Verona.
Supervision: Prof. Annalisa Frisina, Prof. Luca Trappolin, Dr. Michela Semprebon.
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This study is an attempt to show the heuristic potential of social space in the field of social movement studies with the utilization of the analytical categories ‘identity of place’ and ‘place-based identities’ for a comparative analysis of antagonistic movements in the city of Verona, promoting competing constructions of city-zenship (belonging and everyday membership to the city). While the city of Verona has come to the fore as the fortress of the far-right in the Italian peninsula and a model city for the transnational network of identitarian actors, it also demonstrates grassroots potentials for the realization of an inclusive and pluralist belonging in the everyday city life. The analysis premised on 3 years of fieldwork that included participant observation in urban spaces, online ethnography, in-depth interviews, archival research, and visual methods, demonstrates the ways in which collective identity and collective action of social actors are shaped by their relationship to the space in which they operate. On the one hand, an alliance of sovereignist identitarianism is united in an exclusionary territorial identity that is embodied in the inward-looking touristscape of the historical center, and on the other hand, an assemblage of progressive groups referred to as the ‘antibodies of hate’ is formed through the expansive place-based identity that they have helped establish in the outward-looking neighborhood of Veronetta. These actors author everyday struggles in shared urban spaces through practices of territorialization, transformative placemaking, and alternative representations of space that not only work to inscribe their vision of city-zenship upon such space, thereby marking cognitive boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, but also connect them with similar struggles in different settings.
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2010 - 2011
University of Exeter
Exchange Program in Politics and International Relations
2009 – 2015
Sabancı University
PhD in Political Science with full doctoral scholarship
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Thesis: The Balancing of Human Rights and Counterterrorism: A Comparative Analysis of Turkey and the UK
Committee: Prof. Meltem Muftuler-Baç (advisor), Dr. Brooke Luetgert, Dr. AteÅŸ Altınordu, Prof. AyÅŸe KadıoÄŸlu, Dr. Bahar Rumelili.
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One of the most salient manifestations of the age-old tension in international politics between international norms versus security concerns is nowadays evidently conveyed in the tense relationship between human rights and counter-terrorism measures. While commitment to human rights became a benchmark of legitimate state conduct in contemporary politics, the fight against terrorism particularly in the post-9/11 era has given way to contentious practices that tend to undermine long established democratic values. At this juncture, this research investigates how state actors balance the often contradictory entailments of counter-terrorism and human rights. Given that the relationship between discourse and policy of counter-terrorism is a mutually constitutive process, the study undertakes a multi-method qualitative research composed of a comparative policy analysis as well as frame analysis of parliamentary debates in the context of Turkey and the UK. The study argues that in an attempt to by-pass human rights obligations state actors securitize areas of political life replacing them beyond the boundaries of normal politics by invoking a sense of exceptionalism. The institutionalization of the state of exception in the long-run yields grave ramifications for the status of human rights and the functioning of democracy.
2007 - 2008
University of Essex
MA in Theory and Practice of Human Rights as a Chevening/OSI Scholar
(Dissertation supervisor Dr. Yasemin NuhoÄŸlu Soysal)
2004 - 2007
Middle East Technical University (High Honors Degree)
Major: Sociology Department
Minor: International Relations Department, European Studies Program)
1996 - 2003
Uskudar American Academy
RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
Urban Sociology, Social Movements, Space and Identity, Democracy and Pluralism, Social Inclusion and Exclusion, Migration Studies, Security Studies, Human Rights, Qualitative Research Methods, EU Politics, and Political Sociology.
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RESEARCH AND TEACHING EXPERIENCES
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2022-2023
University of Milan, Department of Social and Political Sciences.
Research Fellow.
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2022
University of Padova, Department of Sociology,
Supplementary Teaching for the Course Qualitative and Visual Methods for Social Research.
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2019
University of California Santa Cruz, Department of Sociology
Visiting Researcher (Supervisor Prof. Camilla Hawthorne)
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2015-2017
Joint Research Project by Sabanci University and KU Leuven "Assessing interdependence between the European Union and Turkey: Policies and cooperation in regional and global governance," Postdoctoral Researcher.
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2013-2014
University of Otago National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Visiting Researcher as a TUBÄ°TAK Fellow (Supervisor Prof. Richard Jackson).
2009 - 2015
Sabancı University Social and Political Sciences, Law and Ethics Course (SPS 303), Teaching Assistant.
2011
Sabancı University Social and Political Sciences, Humanity and Society Course (SPS 102), Teaching Assistant.
2006 - 2007
European Commission 6th Framework Project VEIL: Values, Equality and Differences in Liberal Democracies, Research Assistant
ADDITIONAL TRAINING
2020
Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy
Comparative European Politics: The Radical Right in Europe (graduate course by Prof. Manuela Caiani)
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2018
Global TEFL
Teaching English as a Foreign Language, 40 Hour Introductory Certificate
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2012
Koç University, Turkey
Graduate Summer School in Advanced Research Methods and Statistics in Social Sciences
2007
Bilgi University, Turkey
Open Society Institute Pre-Academic Summer School
ADDITIONAL WORK EXPERIENCES
2009
Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID), Translation/Interpretation Services
2008 - 2009
UNDP Private Sector Partnership Office Internship
2006
AIESEC Jaipur/India, Project SYNERGY Internship, Cultural Sensitivity Team Leader
GRANTS & AWARDS
2022
University of Milan, Research Fellowship
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2018
University of Padova Doctoral Scholarship
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2015-2017
Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey Postdoctoral Fellowship
2013-2014
Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey International Research Fellowship
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2008
Open Society Foundations Human Rights Internship Grant
2007-2008
Chevening / Open Society Foundations Scholarship for MA in Theory and Practice of Human Rights at the University of Essex
SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS
Languages
Turkish (Native)
English (C2)
Italian (C1)
German (A1)
Computer Skills
MAXQDA
ATLAS.ti
Qualtrics
SPSS
STATA
IRaMuTeQ
Transana