MONOGRAPHS
​
The book offers an engaging comparative analysis of antagonistic social actors co-existing in Verona, a mid-sized city in northeast Italy renowned as the fortress of the far-right. This rich multidimensional analysis explores the intersection of space, identity, and social movements, by delving into the evolution of competing actors and their contending positions on identity and belonging as manifested through urban spaces. While the city and its touristic heritage are promoted for a transnational identitarian network, the protracted struggles of grassroots actors demonstrate democratic potentials for the bottom-up realization of inclusive and pluralist possibilities in hostile settings. The analysis premised on 3 years of fieldwork that includes participant observation, 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, with ramifications for places beyond. The book traces the ways in which collective identity and collective action of social actors are shaped by their relationship to the space in which they operate, with ramifications for places beyond.​​​​​​
​
​
This book offers a systematic analysis of how the interaction between language of security and language of rights produces policies which not only affect everyday functioning of democracy, but also redefine the understanding of sovereignty. Demirsu presents a rich theoretical framework and a novel methodological design, premised on a multi-method qualitative research that offers a comparative analysis of counter-terrorism and human rights in Turkey and the United Kingdom. While Part I offers an analysis of the evolution of these two key policy-areas in relation to each other, Part II presents the findings of the frame analysis of parliamentary debates, both concluding by mapping out cross-cutting patterns in these two cases. As a result, the author demonstrates in detail how discourse and policy-making are mutually constitutive from a comparative angle.
PUBLICATIONS
​
​​
​
Our aim in this article is to analyse youth aspirations for self-fulfilment through work in the interplay between individualization and self-entrepreneurship. Theoretically, we discuss the main approaches of individualization and self-government in contemporary youth studies. Empirically, based on 40 in-depth interviews, we focus on urban youth in the post-pandemic context, in the Italian city of Milan, paying specific attention to the transformation of their aspirations and social relations after the experience of the lockdown. We highlight the rise of a new form of self-narration that we define ‘enchanted realism’. Such self-narration tries not to completely give up hopes of self-fulfilment in the face of the challenges of the neoliberalist socio-economic environment, but at the same time, it resizes the myth of the entrepreneurial self by unveiled doubts and fears of inadequacy, paving the way to less self-referential attitudes.
​
​
This article investigates the construction of translocal belongings among postmigrant youth in urban peripheries, by analyzing the latter’s musical subculture treated as expressions of identity for racialized and marginalized young individuals. Focusing on the case of the trap ensemble Seven7oo associated with the San Siro neighborhood of Milan, an intertextual reading of everyday urban spaces, personal narratives, musical and social media content is undertaken to unpack core themes shaping identity constructions of postmigrant youth living in peripheral landscapes. This is done so through the triangulation of ethnographic fieldwork in the neighborhood of San Siro, online ethnography of Seven7oo members and their followers, in-depth interviews, and song lyrics treated as personal testimonies of children of immigrants growing up in marginalized areas of a rich European metropolis. It is argued that three themes are salient across different sources of data, namely a. situated childhood suffering as a glue for translocal collective identity, b. prevalence of translocational bonds against the negation of national belongings, and c. (digital) marketing of fast-track mobility in overcoming stigmatization and marginalization.
​
​
The article aims to unpack the making of an alliance between the religious right, far-right, and populist rights actors in the city of Verona, whilst offering insights into possibilities of progressive change in a setting predominantly controlled by traditionalist and nativist groups. Premised on a larger three-years of fieldwork, the article undertakes a historical analysis utilizing archival data together with ethnographic observations to investigate local dynamics that have led to the formation of anti-gender alliance, and its connections with international counterparts most notably revealed by the World Congress of Families 2019. It is argued that the anti-gender societal vision shared by ultra-Catholic and far-right actors, shaped by wider nativist themes resonate in other settings, become institutionalized in local administration through populist right parties. However, an analysis of the victory of a progressive local administration in 2022 reveals that progressive social change is made possible even in the most unlikely setting, owing to networks of solidarity that similarly cultivate collaboration among progressive institutional actors and civil society groups.
​
​
The article aims to shed light on everyday bottom-up practices of local solidarity groups in a predominantly exclusionary and nativist context. Considered as one of the most hostile settings in the Italian peninsula, with an elevated presence of far-right and populist right actors, the city of Verona offers an interesting case as con-comitantly the capital of migration of the Veneto region. Against the elevated presence of an ethnonationalist outlook to urban membership, a local network of grassroots actors challenges exclusionary practices in solidarity with newcomers from various legal statuses and backgrounds. These grassroots actors sharing the memory of collective struggles collaborate to overcome both social hostility and limitations of the institutional reception system in their own hometown. Premised on 3 years of fieldwork, the analysis draws from personal testimonies alongside visual narratives and archival research in offering a multidimensional historical investigation of everyday solidarities in an unlikely setting.
​
​
Verona is known as the touristic city of Romeo and Juliet, but its position as a strategic node in the rising identitarian movement goes unnoticed to the thousands of tourists visiting the city every day. This article articulates the historical centre of Verona as a public space in which far-right and populist right groups seek to construct an exclusionary territorial identity that draws on white supremacy, northern pride and Catholic fundamentalism, which manifest themselves in practices of bordering and territorialization. I argue that the city's perfectly preserved heritage and its assumed authenticity are not only utilized to construct the ideal protagonists of city life, but also that such territorial themes of defending the ‘native homeland’ and its traditions are marketed to the outside world by constructing a ‘model’ city for a growing transnational movement. In this study, which is based on ethnographic fieldwork, archival research and in-depth interviews, I investigate the mechanisms through which certain historical centres are showcased to build an identitarian network through everyday practices of boundary-drawing and the marketing of a territorial anti-modernist nostalgia.
​​
​
In Italy, the city of Verona is known not merely for its stunning historical scenery, but also for its reactionary environment foreshadowing the nativist turn in the wider society. Against this backdrop, the racialized neighborhood of Veronetta offers much needed insights into convivial practices with pluralist interconnections. Part of a three-year fieldwork, this research investigates possibilities of everyday conviviality and intercultural sociability in urban spaces, tracing those dynamics that allow a racialized neighborhood to strive in a hostile city. Alongside participant observation, in-depth interviews, and archival research, the visual method of photo-elicitation is utilized to draw out multidimensional aspects of conviviality, where migrant and non-migrant residents photographically narrate their everyday practices. The article argues that the juxtaposition of intentional urban encounters and accessible public spaces, alongside everyday community-building practices of grassroots actors complement each other in transforming a “no-go zone” into an anti-racist movement space that challenges exclusionary territorial identities.
​
​
​
The book is a timely and engaging read that offers a systematic unpacking of the nativist logic between identity and territory, which has become ever more pervasive in western liberal democracies.
​
​
​
Internationally renowned as the romantic setting of Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, the formulation of ‘love’ the city of Verona has come to champion is premised on heteronormative scripts, where the ‘natural family’ between ‘natives’ is espoused as the panacea against the ills of a globalizing society. It is no coincidence that Verona was the choice of venue for the World Congress of Families in 2019, as the city has become a laboratory of the anti-gender movement amidst the decades-long resistance of feminist and LGBTQ+ groups. Premised on three years of fieldwork, this article employs a tripartite interspatial analysis to unpack the making of an ideal ‘anti-gender space’ on the one hand, and the protracted grass-roots resistance on the other hand in the mid-sized Italian city of Verona. Starting with the traditional field of political space, the article first addresses the conflict over citizenship rights in the city between the anti-gender alliance among institutional and non-institutional actors and the grassroots struggle for the recognition of sexual and reproductive rights. The second dimension explores the everyday dynamics of contentious movements in shared urban spaces involving border drawing and bor-der-erasing in city space. And thirdly, representations of territoriality and counter-territoriality on semantic space is analyzed, where urban imaginaries can act as stimulus for connecting with transnational actors. The article seeks to expand the interdisciplinary dialogue on the spatialities of sexual politics between critical geography and political sociology. It is argued that a spatial analysis of contentious sexual politics needs to take into account all three interwoven dimensions to fully understand the role of the ‘local’ within the ‘transnational’ in the nexus of state-movement-countermovement.
​
​
​
This article investigates the novel forms of intergenerational communication in transnational families introduced by the widespread use of video-calls on smartphones. Centring on the kin-keeping role of the mother, the study analyses 30 semi-structured interviews with migrant Turkish mothers living in 10 different countries around the world, as the facilitators of video-calls and intergenerational mediators. It is argued that smartphone mediated video-calls add new dimensions to the communication that expand the possibilities of self-expression and bonding for the migrant child with their grandparents in the form of visual performance, spatial sharing and spatio-temporal longing, while offering new ways of carrying out traditional grandparenting roles in a digitalized setting. Such intergenerational communication is mediated by migrant mothers as manifested through the practice of simultaneous multigenerational communication engaging all three generations on different forms of exchange enabled by the device itself. Although the new generation born into the digital age struggle with the paradox of separation vis-à-vis virtual togetherness, everyday video-calls on smartphones not only help keep the image of ‘family’ alive for the migrant child, they also generate a circumambient virtual setting that permits the transfer of family culture, knowledge and values wherein the younger generation can learn from the parent–grandparent relationship model.
​
Demirsu Ipek & Müftüler-Baç, Meltem (2019) "The Turkish-EU Cooperation on the Refugee Crisis: The Turkish Perceptions in the Parliamentary Debates," in (eds.) Kolja Raube, Jan Wouters, and Meltem Müftüler-Baç, Parliamentary Cooperation and Diplomacy in EU External Relations, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
​
Turkey faces many challenges managing the intake of an unprecedented number of refugees and feels the ramifications of the Syrian crisis the most. As the human tragedy of refugees fleeing their war-torn country unfolded, the need for a viable cooperation between Turkey as a candidate country and the EU has proven to be vital in overcoming a common challenge, resulting in the reutilization of the Readmission Agreement and a congruent Joint Action Plan. Hence, this chapter undertakes an investigation of how this partnership was framed in the Turkish political scene in the nexus of the oscillating path of Turkey’s accession process and the gravest humanitarian crisis of our times. In this context, parliamentary representation presents itself as an inclusive site wherein a plethora of political viewpoints find expression in deliberating key policies. The analysis suggests that there has been a general tendency of skepticism towards the EU in the Turkish political discourse, and a concomitant expectation for a more committed involvement in the refugee issue, which is increasingly framed in a security narrative.
​
​
Turkey faces many challenges managing the intake of an unprecedented number of refugees and feels the ramifications of the Syrian crisis the most. As the human tragedy of refugees fleeing their war-torn country unfolded, the need for a viable cooperation between Turkey as a candidate country and the EU has proven to be vital in overcoming a common challenge, resulting in the reutilization of the Readmission Agreement and a congruent Joint Action Plan. Hence, this chapter undertakes an investigation of how this partnership was framed in the Turkish political scene in the nexus of the oscillating path of Turkey’s accession process and the gravest humanitarian crisis of our times. In this context, parliamentary representation presents itself as an inclusive site wherein a plethora of political viewpoints find expression in deliberating key policies. The analysis suggests that there has been a general tendency of skepticism towards the EU in the Turkish political discourse, and a concomitant expectation for a more committed involvement in the refugee issue, which is increasingly framed in a security narrative.
​
​
​
This article addresses the question of how draconian counter-terrorism policies are legitimized in long-established democracies. Being the heartland of liberal rights, the UK comes to the fore as a striking case where some of the most controversial security policies have been enacted. The study undertakes a systematic frame analysis of UK parliamentary debates with the help of ATLAS.ti, which allows the analyst to trace and map out recurrent concepts, themes, and arguments as well as their overall distribution. While demonstrating the workings of securitization in the formulation of key counter-terrorism legislation, the study unearths how the security narrative in the UK context evidently relies on the language of rights in invoking legitimacy. The study suggests that far from negating the indispensable status of human rights, security narrative resorts to the latter’s moral power and mimics rights language, heralding the weight of these international norms even in hard-core security matters.
​
Demirsu, Ipek & Müftüler-Baç, Meltem (2017) “The Turkish-EU Cooperation on the Refugee Crisis: The Turkish Perceptions in the Parliamentary Debates,” PACO Working Paper, No. 07 August 2017, Jean Monnet Network PACO-Interparliamentary Cooperation in the EU’s External Action.
​
This exploratory research offers a comparative policy analysis of the so-called 'refugee crisis' from the point of view of Turkish policy-makers in light of Turkey's EU accession process.
​
WORK IN PROGRESS
​​
Demirsu, Ipek. "Cityspace, belonging, and urban movements: A place-based comparative analysis of
collective action in northern Italy." (Accepted for publication by Mobilization: an International Quarterly, 2025)
This study examines social actors in two peripheral neighborhoods of northern Italy: San Siro (Milan) and Veronetta (Verona). Both areas are marginalized spaces associated with urban decay yet host an intense presence of diverse civil society groups. Despite similar demographic, urbanistic, and social attributes, Veronetta features a cohesive grassroots movement organically connected to the neighborhood, while San Siro exhibits fragmented social actors and uncoordinated efforts. Employing the analytical categories of ‘identity of place’ and ‘place-based identity,’ this research undertakes multi-sited ethnography and qualitative interviews to compare the socio-spatial dynamics of urban movements. It argues that identity of place and social ties enabled by it are sources of collective identity guiding collective action. For actors operating in peripheral urban settings, the ability to tap into the identity of place and to integrate place-based belongings leads to the creation of a movement space, whilst failure to do so results in sporadic interventions.
​​
CONFERENCES and SEMINARS
​
2024 February, Qualitative interviews and visual methods (Doctoral seminar), Doctoral Programme in Social Sciences, University of Padova.
​
2023 November, Territories and Identities: A Critical Perspective on Belonging, Scuola Normale Superiore (Florence)
"Cityspace, Belonging, and Urban Movements: A Comparative Analysis of Place-Based Collective Identity in Two Contested Neighborhoods of Northern Italy"​
​
2023 November, Graduate Course on Far Right Politic in Europe, Scuola Normale Superiore (Florence)
"Operations of identitarian actors in cityspace: The case of Verona" (Guest Lecture)
​
2022 October, The Welcoming of Refuees and Grassroots Solidarity (University of Genova)
"Grassroots Solidarity for Refugees in Hostile Grounds: Practices and Spaces of
Bottom-Up Inclusion in Verona"
​
2022 May, Weaving the Transnational Anti-gender Network Conference Scuola Normale Superiore (Florence)
"Heteronormative Scripts of Belonging in the City of Love: Verona as a Stronghold of the Transnational Anti-gender Movement"
​
2021 September, 15th European Sociological Association Conference (Barcelona)
"Contending Movements in Shared Urban Spaces: Practices of Territorialization in Verona."
​
2021 June, 8th Ethnography and Qualitative Research Conference (Trento)
"Identitarian Movements in the Touristic City: The Marketing of Hate in Verona."
​
2021 January, ESA RN 37 Urban Sociology Midterm Conference (Bologna)
"Visualizing Co-existence in Urban Spaces: City-zen Remapping of a Multicultural Neighbourhood."
​
2019 November, University of California Santa Cruz, Department of Sociology Colloquium Series (Santa Cruz)
"Verona the City of Love and Hate: The Struggle to Define City-scape and Belonging in the Age of Right-wing Populism." (Invited seminar)
​
2019 June, International Migration Conference (University of Aldo Moro, Bari)
"Watching Them Grow: Intergenerational Video Chatting Among Migrant Children."
​
2018 October, ETH Zürich Center for Comparative and International Studies Colloquium Series
"Counter-terrorism and the Prospects of Human Rights: Securitizing Difference and Dissent."
​
2017 September, 8th International Conference ICSR Mediterranean Knowledge-Medworks (University of Salerno)
"The Turkey-EU Cooperation on the Refugee Crisis: Turkish Perceptions in the Parliamentary Debates” (Co-authored with Prof. Meltem Müftüler-Baç)
​
2017 March, The European Union and Turkey in Times of crisis (KU Leuven)
"The European Union's Perspective on The Refugee Deal with Turkey" (Co-authored with Damla Cihangir- Tetik)
​
2016 February, Parliamentary Cooperation and Diplomacy in Europe and Beyond International Conference (Brussels)
"Framing the Partnership: Expectations and Perceptions of the Turkey- EU Cooperation on the Refugee Crisis"
2015 October, Workshop at VU Amsterdam (Amsterdam)
"EU and the Democratization of National Security in Turkey: Policies and Perceptions"
2015 June, Security in the European Union and Its Neighborhood: Challenges and Policy Responses, with the Support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union (Dundee)
"Breaking with the Dark Past? European Union and the Democratization of Security Policies in Turkey"
2015 April, Maximizing the Integration Capacity of Europe, Young Researchers Workshop (Istanbul)
"Breaking with the Dark Past? European Union and the Democratization of Security Policies in Turkey"
2015 April, Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference (Chicago)
"Prevalent Policy Frames in the Making of Counter-terrorism Policies: A Comparative Analysis of Turkey and the UK"
2013 November, New Zealand Political Science Association Conference (Christchurch)
"The Trade-off between Human Rights and National Security: A Comparative Analysis of the UK and Turkey"
2012 June, BISA-ISA Joint Conference (Edinburgh)
"Is WikiLeaks the Harbinger of Global Civil Society or a Re-affirmation of Realism in World Politics?"
2012 April, Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference (Chicago)
"Role of the European Public Opinion in Turkey’s EU-bid."
2011 June, ATINER-9th Annual International Conference on Politics & International Affairs (Athens)
"Political Islam and The Spiral Model of Human Rights Change: The Case of Turkish Penal Code Reform and Women’s Human Rights."
2010 September, ECPR Graduate Conference (Dublin)
"Political Islam and the Protection of Women's Human Rights"
​
​