Merhaba!

I’m a political geographer driven by curiosity about how power, place, and identity shape our world. My research, writing, and teaching engage with topics such as the geographies of the state, Kurdish studies, critical geopolitics, feminist geography, refugee studies, and state violence.

Currently, I am investigating state violence through a feminist and embodied lens. This project focuses on how state violence is enacted, experienced, and normalized in everyday life, particularly in Kurdish-majority cities in Turkey. By examining the emotions, practices, and institutional cultures of security personnel, I aim to move beyond abstract understandings of the state and instead foreground its embodied, intimate, and affective dimensions. This work builds on feminist political geography while opening new ways of thinking about violence, state power, and lived geographies.

I hold a BA and MA in Political Science from Turkey and earned my PhD in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2020. After a year at TED University in Ankara, I joined the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern in 2022 as a postdoctoral researcher, where I continue to work today.

My doctoral research focused on Turkish-Sunni diaspora mosques in Germany and their role as political and social spaces. Since then, I’ve collaborated with Dr. Banu Gökarıksel and Betül Aykaç on a project exploring how Afghan and Syrian refugees are represented through geopolitical discourses in Turkey.

I co-chair the Feminist Geographies group of the Swiss Association of Geographers (ASG) and am an active member of the Swiss Association for Turkish Studies (SFST) and the Swiss Society for the Middle East and Islamic Cultures (SGMOIK). In 2025, I joined the board of the AAG Political Geography Specialty Group.

I’ve taught in Turkey, the U.S., and Switzerland, offering courses in Geography, Middle East Studies, Sociology, and Political Science. Over the past three years, I’ve led MA-level seminars and lectures in Political Geography, Feminist Geographies, and Research Colloquia.

Outside academia, I find joy in the small things—collecting everyday objects and turning them into keepsakes, experimenting with artistic crafting, and reading art history as an amateur. I also enjoy sci-fi and fantasy, while comedy for me is both a way to relax and a political lens I deeply appreciate. Cooking Mediterranean vegan dishes (with varying results!) and walking in the rain or getting lost in a new city are among my favorite pastimes.