Merhaba!

Originating from Turkey, I am a political geographer with a keen focus on feminist and critical geopolitics, alongside exploring the geographical nuances of statehood. 

My primary research endeavors are currently centered around the investigation of everyday militarism within the Kurdish-majority regions of Turkey, employing an embodied methodology. This study ventures into previously unexplored territory, adopting an inside-out perspective to scrutinize the intricacies of security bureaucracy. It integrates diverse academic disciplines such as the geographies of the state, feminist geopolitics, and the anthropology of the state. Currently, I am in the data collection phase of this project.  

In my doctoral thesis, I delved into the everyday transnational spaces of the Turkish-Muslim diaspora, with a specific feminist ethnographic focus on Turkish mosques scattered across Germany. I posited these mosques as intimate community havens intricately woven into a tapestry of local, transnational, and transregional territorial politics. The study revealed how these sacred spaces metamorphose into homelands, fueled by the communal feelings of belonging, care, and unity prevalent in Muslim communities. This established a connection between intimacy, national borders, and representations, suggesting that state spaces extend beyond government and military confines to religious realms, driven by emotions and sentiments

Academically, I completed my BA in Political Science in 2010 and my MA in 2013, both in Turkey, before earning a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2020. Throughout my Ph.D., I had the privilege of teaching at UNC-CH and Duke University, followed by a tenure at TED University in Ankara. In February 2022, I embarked on a postdoctoral journey at Bern University’s Institute of Geography, joining a distinguished team of feminist scholars in the Social and Cultural Geography Unit, led by Dr. Carolin Schurr. My role includes teaching MA seminars on Political Geography and Feminist Geopolitics and supervising theses.

I warmly invite you to reach out for further details regarding my academic pursuits, access to my articles, or course syllabuses. Please feel free to contact me!