Hello,
We are happy to announce our new project: Turkey Beyond Borders, Critical Voices, New Perspectives. My name is Pinar Dinc and I lead this project together with Dr. Omer Turan and an advisory board composed of colleagues in Turkey, Sweden, and Europe.
International observers, including the European Universities Association (EUA), Human Rights Watch (HRW), and Amnesty International, have reported that academic freedoms in Turkey have been severely restricted in the last four years. This restriction has two components: a) A purge targeting academics, and b) an atmosphere of fear imposed on academia.
“Turkey Beyond Borders: Critical Voices, New Perspectives” aims to develop academic collaboration between academics in Sweden and scholars from Turkey whose academic freedoms are implicitly or explicitly violated. In doing so, we aim to:
– Offer a platform for research and issues not covered by the mainstream social sciences,
– Bring together academics who challenge methodological nationalism,
– Focus on the gender inequalities in social sciences,
– Acknowledge disadvantaged groups,
– Strengthen academic collaboration and solidarity between scholars of Turkey and Sweden.
The project is composed of a seminar and vodcast series, which will be available in Turkish and English on this dedicated website and our social media accounts. We will primarily focus on topics under the general themes of democracy, conflict, identities, social movements, and foreign policy. We hope that these vodcasts will become teaching and learning materials for scholars and undergraduate and graduate students, as well as experts, NGOs, and stakeholders.
The project is funded by the Swedish Institute and hosted by Lund University. We would also like to thank Pikan Agency for designing our website. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, we had a slight change in plans and we will begin with the vodcasts. We hope to start our seminars here at Lund University in the coming fall. We invite you to follow us on our social media accounts, and for any questions and comments you can contact us at turkeybeyondborders[at]gmail.com and info[at]turkeybeyondborders.org.
With solidarity!