Public Lecture at Maltepe University: Kurdish Nationalism: A Critical Analysis By Maurizio Geri

EDWARD SAID LECTURE SERIES

AT MALTEPE UNIVERSITY

Kurdish Nationalism: A Critical Analysis

Maurizio Geri 

I am a PhD Candidate and Research Assistant in International Studies at Old Dominion University (Conflict and Cooperation and Comparative Politics). Originally from Florence, Italy, where I completed a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science/International Relations and a Master’s degree in Cultural Studies, I have extensive professional experience in Latin America and South Asia where I worked in the areas of peacekeeping, human rights and democracy with different NGOs (to include Peace Brigades International and Nonviolent Peaceforce). My most recent research focus is in the area of Muslim democracies, in particular on the treatment of ethnic minorities, specifically on the securitization of Kurdish minority in Turkey and decentralization and autonomization of ethnic minorities in Indonesia.

Date: Tuesday December 22, 2015
Time: 13:00 - 15:00 PM
Place: T.C. Maltepe Üniversitesi Marmara Eğitim Köyü - 34857 Maltepe - İSTANBUL 
İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi -Derslik 7

Edward Said Lecture Series at Maltepe University

Turkey, where social networks are regime’s new guard dogs

Dağhan Irak 

Dec 7, 2015

Turkey’s iron-hand ruler Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been enjoying an incontestable power which gradually converts itself to an autocratic regime. The roots of AKP’s unshakeable reign are widely debated; it could be the traditional rural Turkish culture, the religion, the sustainable poverty neatly imposed on the society and turning an entire nation into a charity case, or all of the above… However one aspect of Turkey’s Islamist-conservative regime is rather overlooked; its dependence on social networks.

AKP considers itself to be a descendant of both Adnan Menderes’s Democrat Party of the 1950’s and Necmettin Erbakan’s National Viewpoint movement of the 1970’s to the 90’s. The party indubitably inherits most of its populist and conservative tendencies from these two political movements; however more crucially, it happens to own the social networks consolidated by these two against the army-backed Kemalist state for decades. These networks are composed of all walks of traditional rural life; from poor villagers to rich landowners turned into businessmen (aka. Anatolian Tigers) mostly by reappropriating wealth of non-Muslim bourgeoisie “cleansed off” the Anatolian territory. These networks of Anatolian Tigers has been existant for decades, however it was AKP who replaced them with their secular rivals dominating the market. As a matter of fact, AKP integrated these networks into the public-private joint capital so irreversibly that the system could never work properly without these networks and the party-state coordinating them. A project called Mülksüzleştirme Ağları / Networks of Dispossession based on Graph Commons network mapping tool, aims to visualize these networks.

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Postdoctoral Fellowship in Modern Turkish Studies - Northwestern University

The Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program in the Buffett Institute for Global Studies at Northwestern University invites applications for a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the study of Turkey in a global or a comparative perspective. Applications are welcome from scholars whose research addresses transnational social processes, problems or conflicts in connection to contemporary Turkey.

The fellowship will run from September 1, 2016 to August 31, 2018.

The salary is $55,000. In addition, the Fellow is eligible for $5,000 per year to fund research and conference travel, and up to $2,000 in reimbursement for allowable relocation expenses in the first year. This is a full-time, benefits-eligible position.

Applicants must have received their Ph.D. between January 1, 2011 and August 31, 2016.

Application deadline is February 1, 2016, at 5 p.m. (CT).

For a complete position description and application procedures, visit:
http://buffett.northwestern.edu/programs/turkish-studies/postdoc.html

Northwestern University is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer of all protected classes including veterans and individuals with disabilities. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Hiring is contingent upon eligibility to work in the United States.