“The Istanbul I moved here for is gone” Today I gave a guest lecture in the course, Postcolonial Europe at Utrecht University, led by Dr. Gianmaria Colpani and Dr. Layal Ftouni. It was a great […]
Fieldwork blog: contesting Istanbul’s identity on social media
Artist, Burak Akbay, created and shared this piece online, saying on Twitter that he had made it as a new logo for Istanbul, since the city has a new symbol: the Arab hair transplant tourist.
Fieldwork blog: animal protection as urban solidarity
I’ve been thinking about animal rights activism in Istanbul as a form of alternative solidarity being built under polarized political circumstances, and wondering how social media might play into this.
Workshop on the Anthropology of Media in Turkey
I’m very glad to be joining the sessions of a great event at Kadir Has University in Istanbul. Coinciding with my first days of fieldwork here in the city, the workshop has brought together a […]
Presentation of conference paper on alternative digital mappings of diaspora at IMISCOE 2017
This week our team’s paper was presented at IMISCOE’s annual conference, on a panel about methodological considerations in digital migration studies.
Open access publication of commentary in issue #4 of Spheres on Media and Migration
I was asked to write a commentary for the latest issue of Spheres: Journal for Digital Cultures. The journal is open access, and this issue is dedicated to the theme of international migration and the […]
Symposium on the Politics of Twitter at the University of Amsterdam
Yesterday I dropped by an inspiring symposium on Public Lives/Private Platform: The Politics of Twitter organized by Matt Cornell and co. at the University of Amsterdam. Was a great, self-organized space for activists, academics, journalists, and critical tech enthusiasts of many sorts. The keynote lecture by Jillian York on the history of the hashtag was very cool and it was a pleasure to meet her.
Fieldwork blog: the many Istanbuls
The sheer expanse of Istanbul means that my respondents only really live in a few neighbourhoods of it.
Fieldwork blog: Gurbetci
To understand the historical, political, and emotional resonance of this migration, we must first analyse such categories as gurbet and gurbetci. The gurbetci – one who lives in exile, diaspora, or away from the homeland – lives in a state […]
Fieldwork blog: what do border-crossing videos do?
The first people I spoke with in Istanbul mentioned the protests outside the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam. This demonstration had followed the Dutch authorities’ decision to disallow Turkish ministers entry into the Netherlands to campaign for the […]
