Journal Articles by Mert Kocak
Altınay, A. G., Pető, A., Avakian, A. V., Dutchak, O., Enloe, C., Koçak, M., López Belloso, M., & kennedy-macfoy, madeleine. (2022). Open Forum: Feminist+ solidarity. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/13505068221130407 What does 'feminist+ solidarity' mean for you? How do you see its place in contemporary (feminist... more What does 'feminist+ solidarity' mean for you? How do you see its place in contemporary (feminist) politics? Cynthia Enloe: I get uncomfortable with the term 'solidarity'; it sounds solid. In its lived reality, though, solidarity is not solid; it is always in motion. Those of us who yearn for a solid form of human solidarity will, I think, be constantly disappointed. Out of our disappointment, I'm afraid, some of us will become alienated and will drop out of the demanding processes that create and sustain solidarity. Creating and then sustaining solidarity, I've slowly learnt, takes a deepening of awareness and a building of trust. .. Deepening one's awareness involves expanding our understanding into perhaps unfamiliar and uncomfortable areas. Building trust calls for lots of listening, lots of humility. Both are personal and collective efforts that take time and energy, time and energy which we may feel we can't afford. Creating and sustaining a feminist-infused sort of social solidarity takes even more effort, even more energy. Furthermore, a feminist awareness one has developed may, over time, become dulled. Likewise, a feminist-informed mutual trust that one has worked hard to build may, under new stressful conditions, come unravelled.
Middle East Critique, 2020
Turkey’s long-standing geographical limitation on the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Stat... more Turkey’s long-standing geographical limitation on the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees resulted in fractured legal statuses for refugees, each with minimal rights but extensive responsibilities. One of these categories, conditional refugees under international protection, presents a curious case of direct involvement of UNHCR in processing asylum applications filed under this category and resettling accepted individuals to third countries. Situated in the fourteen-month fieldwork with queer refugees under international protection, this article scrutinizes UNHCR’s role in the asylum-seeking process in Turkey through which queer refugees’ experience of displacement finds a new meaning of being “deserving” of refugee status and resettlement to a third country. UNHCR’ direct involvement in Turkey makes it an important actor in policing and controlling not only sexuality and gender identity of queer refugees but also in constructing deservingness of refugee status as a gendered performance of persecution and in constructing the discourse of “fake LGBT refugees.”
Why and how has Anne Frank been identified as an icon of victimhood in the Holocaust to be rememb... more Why and how has Anne Frank been identified as an icon of victimhood in the Holocaust to be remembered and mourned? This paper aims at understanding the workings of gendered and racialized idioms of remembrance and memorialization in turning Anne Frank into an icon. The paper states that in order for Anne Frank to be appropriated into the master narrative of the Holocaust, her representations have been subjected to de-sexualization, de-Judaization, feminization, and infantilization. The paper tracks down these four gendered and racialized idioms in various reprentational modes of Anne Frank; the different editions of her diary, photographs and artworks used on the cover of the dairies, theatre plays and movies. And finally, the paper draws attention to the pitfalls of using gendered and racialized idioms to remember and mourn Anne Frank: her de-sexualized, de-Judaized, feminized and infantilized representations silence her particularities (her age, gender and race) that made her a target of murderous regime of the Nazi in the first place.
Book Chapters by Mert Kocak
SU Gender ve GAR, 2020
Mert Koçak “Türkiye’ye Göç Eden Kimlikler: Yerel ve Ulusaşırı Dinamiklerin Kesişiminde LGBT Mül... more Mert Koçak “Türkiye’ye Göç Eden Kimlikler: Yerel ve Ulusaşırı Dinamiklerin Kesişiminde LGBT Mülteciliğin İnşası” isimli makalesinde mültecilere yönelik uluslararası koruma rejiminin cinsiyetlendirilmiş yapısını ‘kuir’ teorisini kullanarak eleştiriyor. Göç alanı uzun yıllar boyunca her göçmeni erkek saydığı gibi, her göçmenin heteroseksüel olduğu varsayımı üzerine kurulmuştur. Son yıllarda ise gerek devletlerin göç politikaları gerekse akademik araştırmalar nezdinde farklı cinsel yönelim ve cinsel kimlikler (CYCK) ile göç nedenleri ve deneyimleri arasındaki ilişkinin kabulü yaygınlaşmıştır. Koçak bu yeni düzenin yarattığı ve dayattığı yeni temsilleri ‘LGBT mültecilik’ ve ‘kuir mültecilik’ kavramlarını ayrıştırarak inceliyor. Türkiye’de mülteci statüsü belirleme sürecinde önemli bir rol ve yetkiye sahip Birleşmiş Milletler Mülteci Yüksek Komiserliği’nin pratikleri üzerinden incelediği LGBT mültecilik kavramını statik, homonormatif ve performe edilmesi gereken bir temsil olarak gören Koçak, Eskişehir ve Yalova’da yaptığı araştırmaya dayanarak kuir mültecilik kavramı çerçevesinde CYCK tanımlamalarının farklı zaman ve mekanlarda değişkenliğini göstererek bu göz ardı edilen varoluş biçimlerine vurgu yapıyor.
Working Papers by Mert Kocak
New Europe College Yearbook, 2022
This working paper scrutinizes the role of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in const... more This working paper scrutinizes the role of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in constructing a transnational matrix of deservingness through which migration authorities differentially and selectively allocate refugee status, refugee rights and resettlement spots. This working paper will also reveal two interconnected effects of the transnational matrix of deservingness; while the matrix gives those deemed deserving incentive to remain immobile in Turkey and construct ‘legal’ subjectivities recognized by transnational refugee governance, the matrix gives those deemed undeserving incentive to be mobile, searching ways out of Turkey since they could not construct their legal subjectivities.
Academic Podcasts by Mert Kocak
PODEP - 10 Dakikada Akademi (Mert Koçak), 2022
IYACEP - Increasing Young People's Awareness on Climate Change and Environmental Rights via Podcasting Project (Nur Sultan Çırakman & Mert Koçak) , 2021
Central European University, 2019
In this episode, I am hosting Elif Birced. We will talk about the neoliberal restructuring of hig... more In this episode, I am hosting Elif Birced. We will talk about the neoliberal restructuring of higher education in Turkey. By drawing upon her interviews with 40 professors and graduate student assistants, Elif will make a compelling case for the precarization of work conditions in social sciences as a result of this the neoliberal restructuring. She will also discuss the intersectional role gender plays in the precarization of academia.
Central European University, 2019
In this episode, I am hosting three guests; Didem Şalgam, Balacan Ayar and Zeynep Serinkaya-Winte... more In this episode, I am hosting three guests; Didem Şalgam, Balacan Ayar and Zeynep Serinkaya-Winter. We will talk about the effects of neo-conservativism on women's experiences with gynecological violence. Didem will draw upon her research to argue that conservative gender norms that have already and always resulted in gynecological violence are being given new meanings by the ruling government of Turkey. Also, neoconservative interpretations of gender norms manifest themselves in the state policies about healthcare provided for women. Balacan will mention an important legal case related to gynecological violence and how this case has the potential to be a me-too movement in Turkey, especially within the healthcare system. Finally, Zeynep will share her experiences with gynecological violence, helping our listeners affectively understand the importance of solidarity in dealing with gynecological violence.
Central European University, 2019
In this episode, I am hosting Tegiye Birey. We will discuss the effects of the British colonizati... more In this episode, I am hosting Tegiye Birey. We will discuss the effects of the British colonization on sexuality and gender in Cyprus. We will also talk about how the current occupation of Northern Cyprus by Turkey has shaped not just sexuality and gender but also feminist and queer movements.
Tegiye will raise two important issues in relation to sexuality and gender in Cyprus. The first one is the fact that it was the colonial laws of the British Empire that establish homosexuality as “a crime of unnatural sex”. These laws were in place well into the twentieth-first century, and thus their legacies could be heavily felt on the queer as well as feminist movement in different ways. Tegiye mentions a nostalgic remembering of British colonial times that forgets or neglects to mention such laws under British colonization but instead argues that being a former British colony means having gender equality. But of course, gender inequality was believed to be not a problem only among the natives of the islands. Gender inequality was also attributed to being a problem related to migrants coming from Turkey.
The Turkish invasion and occupation of the Northern part of the island have prevented direct relations between the divided parts of the island. This lack of relationships also included feminist and LGBT movements on both sides, thus also making solidarity links very hard to establish. This division became clearer as Southern Cyprus became a part of the EU while Northern Cyprus remained an unrecognized state. This had a curious effect on NGOization processes of the civil society in Northern Cyprus.
https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/intersectional-resistance-under-british-colonialism-and-turkish-occupation-sexuality-and
Central European University, 2019
In this episode, I am hosting Sercan Çınar again. Back in the fourth episode, we discussed the hi... more In this episode, I am hosting Sercan Çınar again. Back in the fourth episode, we discussed the historical, political and social dynamics that played an important role in constructing, what Sercan calls, socialist masculinities. Sercan detailed how the political violence of the 1970s in Turkey was utilized by the socialist-Marxist movement to reproduce the dichotomy of man/woman and masculinity and femininity. He also pointed out two important factors that differentiate socialist masculinities from hegemonic masculinities. Please take a listen to episode four for a detailed discussion.
In this latest episode, we shift our focus to the legacies of the political violence of the 1970s, specifically in relation to the current socialist-Marxist movement in Turkey and the configurations of socialist masculinities.
One of the legacies is a lingering conservative politics of sexuality amongst the socialist-Marxist movement. Drawing upon his own experiences with the current socialist-Marxist movement as well as his research, Sercan will argue that sexuality is still considered as a matter for the private sphere and, whenever it is politically voiced in public sphere, it can receive backlash from men performing socialist masculinities.
Some within the socialist-Marxist movement also fear being replaced by the feminist and LGBT movements as the main source of oppositional power. Since the political violence of the 1970s and the coup d’état of 1980 weakened the socialist-Marxist movement in Turkey, the increasing influence of feminist and LGBT movement in Turkey posed a threat to the position of men who perform socialist masculinities. Sercan will note that although we can observe socialist-Marxist movement aligning with the feminist and LGBT movements, there are still tendencies to consider these movements as “separatist” or “products" of capitalism or post-modernist academia.
You can access the full episode from here of via this link;
https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/legacies-socialist-masculinities-contemporary-oppositional-politics-turkey
Central European University, 2019
In this episode, I am hosting Ezgican Özdemir. We will talk about the symbolic meanings ascribed ... more In this episode, I am hosting Ezgican Özdemir. We will talk about the symbolic meanings ascribed to water and infrastructures in Northern Cyprus, which also includes gendered imageries of motherhood. Ezgi conducted impressive fieldwork on the water pipelines transferring water from Turkey to Northern Cyprus.
Ezgi will make a compelling case for these symbolic meanings as an important lens through which locals understand the dependent and unequal relations between Northern Cyprus and Turkey. She will also explain how such symbolic meanings play an important role in mediating the daily life experiences of living under a de-facto state that remains unrecognized by the international community to this day. https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/politics-water-northern-cyprus-gendered-symbolisms-and-infrastructures-power
Central European University, 2019
In this episode, we will pick up where we left off with Tankut Atuk and discuss sexualized and ra... more In this episode, we will pick up where we left off with Tankut Atuk and discuss sexualized and racialized deservingness of LGBTI refugees in Turkey. In the second episode, we discussed different ways in which Global North oriented categorizations of vulnerability have migrated to Turkey. We saw that they migrated in the form of project-based funding and they are enacted through local NGOs. We also explained how these categories violently make space for their existence within local realities by transforming subjectivities of LGBTI refugees.
Now we will shift our focus to the concept of deservingness, and it is relations to vulnerability. Drawing upon my fieldwork, I will argue that being deserving of refugee status and rights is proved or performed via a continuous parody of vulnerability. I am calling it a parody, because, vulnerability here does not reflect the complexity of social and political exclusion LGBTI refugees face. Instead, vulnerability reflects only one or two essentialized feature of these exclusions-i.e. the ones that speak to the sensibilities of UNHCR or countries in the Global North. Thus, this approach to vulnerability creates hierarchies within certain forms of social and political exclusions while ignoring others. It also means that being deserving of refugee status and rights depends on refugees' ability to perform a Global North oriented parody of vulnerability. https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/deservingness-and-transnationally-migrating-vulnerabilities-queer-refugees-turkey
Central European University, 2019
Central European University, 2019
In this episode, I am hosting Didem Şalgam, a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Gender Studies... more In this episode, I am hosting Didem Şalgam, a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Gender Studies, CEU. We will talk about neoliberal and neoconservative politics of intimacy in Turkey. Didem will make a compelling case for the need to challenge Global North-dominated narratives around the sexuality of heterosexual cisgender women in general and Muslim women in particular. First, she will discuss how neoliberal politics of individualization and self-management clashes with Turkey’s neoconservative politics of re-inventing traditions through strict control over women’s bodies and their sexualities. She will argue that the tendency and demand for the individualization among young, educated middle-class adults in Turkey subvert the dominant norms of intimacy, gender, and sexual morality.
https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/neoliberal-and-neoconservative-politics-intimacy-turkey-sexting-means-negotiating-new-turkey
Central European University, 2019
In this episode, I am hosting Tankut Atuk again. We will talk about one of the worst kept secrets... more In this episode, I am hosting Tankut Atuk again. We will talk about one of the worst kept secrets of non-governmental organizations working with refugees; the fact that project-based funding of NGOs reduces refugees to mere numbers and categories while ignoring their subjectivity and agency. There were many instances in my own research in Turkey when I observed that the priority of NGOs was to report higher number of refugees to the funding organizations instead of focusing on the quality of services and protection for refugees. One of the most striking examples was the practice of collecting identification numbers of families as a whole. That is to say, even though only one member of the family was visiting NGOs, they were asked to provide ID numbers of other family members. This way, NGOs were seemingly serving more refugees than they actually did. Tankut will further complicate this fact by talking about a project for LGBTI and women refugees at the NGO he worked for as a project manager. Sharing his experiences, Tankut will reveal how refugees are subjected to the violence of categories, or as Judith Butler would call it, normative violence. We will also discuss the material effects of those violent categories. Normative violence, here, refers to the Global North oriented liminal categorisations of refugees in Turkey that disarticulate citizenship rights and rearticulates them in very small bundles. Turkey differentially distributes these small bundles to the refugees according to different categories of "vulnerability" assigned to them. In other words, the language of the projects funded by organisations such as UNHCR or the EU violently reproduces itself in the localities and it produces new subjectivities of deserving and undeserving refugees.https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/normative-and-material-violences-transnationally-migrating-vulnerabilities-queer-refugees
Central European University, 2019
In this episode, I am hosting Tankut Atuk; a Ph.D. student at the Department of Gender, Women an... more In this episode, I am hosting Tankut Atuk; a Ph.D. student at the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota. We will talk about the construction of masculinity in the Turkish Army while sharing the findings of our field researches, showing how far the military is willing to go in order to maintain hegemonic masculinity within the barracks. We will talk about unfortunate moments in very recent history when the Army asked gay men and trans women to provide photos and videos of themselves having sex with another man as so-called 'proof' of their sexuality and gender identity in order to be granted exemption from military service. Tankut makes an especially compelling case for effeminacy being the cornerstone in constructing the military as a masculine space. Effeminacy here roughly refers to bodies that are marked as male from birth performing behaviours that are socially accepted as feminine. He argues that it is not homosexuality per se that the Turkish military is against, but rather effeminacy since it destabilizes the military's fragile masculinity. https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/effeminacy-and-construction-masculinity-turkish-army-curious-case-pink-certificate
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Journal Articles by Mert Kocak
Book Chapters by Mert Kocak
Working Papers by Mert Kocak
Academic Podcasts by Mert Kocak
Tegiye will raise two important issues in relation to sexuality and gender in Cyprus. The first one is the fact that it was the colonial laws of the British Empire that establish homosexuality as “a crime of unnatural sex”. These laws were in place well into the twentieth-first century, and thus their legacies could be heavily felt on the queer as well as feminist movement in different ways. Tegiye mentions a nostalgic remembering of British colonial times that forgets or neglects to mention such laws under British colonization but instead argues that being a former British colony means having gender equality. But of course, gender inequality was believed to be not a problem only among the natives of the islands. Gender inequality was also attributed to being a problem related to migrants coming from Turkey.
The Turkish invasion and occupation of the Northern part of the island have prevented direct relations between the divided parts of the island. This lack of relationships also included feminist and LGBT movements on both sides, thus also making solidarity links very hard to establish. This division became clearer as Southern Cyprus became a part of the EU while Northern Cyprus remained an unrecognized state. This had a curious effect on NGOization processes of the civil society in Northern Cyprus.
https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/intersectional-resistance-under-british-colonialism-and-turkish-occupation-sexuality-and
In this latest episode, we shift our focus to the legacies of the political violence of the 1970s, specifically in relation to the current socialist-Marxist movement in Turkey and the configurations of socialist masculinities.
One of the legacies is a lingering conservative politics of sexuality amongst the socialist-Marxist movement. Drawing upon his own experiences with the current socialist-Marxist movement as well as his research, Sercan will argue that sexuality is still considered as a matter for the private sphere and, whenever it is politically voiced in public sphere, it can receive backlash from men performing socialist masculinities.
Some within the socialist-Marxist movement also fear being replaced by the feminist and LGBT movements as the main source of oppositional power. Since the political violence of the 1970s and the coup d’état of 1980 weakened the socialist-Marxist movement in Turkey, the increasing influence of feminist and LGBT movement in Turkey posed a threat to the position of men who perform socialist masculinities. Sercan will note that although we can observe socialist-Marxist movement aligning with the feminist and LGBT movements, there are still tendencies to consider these movements as “separatist” or “products" of capitalism or post-modernist academia.
You can access the full episode from here of via this link;
https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/legacies-socialist-masculinities-contemporary-oppositional-politics-turkey
Ezgi will make a compelling case for these symbolic meanings as an important lens through which locals understand the dependent and unequal relations between Northern Cyprus and Turkey. She will also explain how such symbolic meanings play an important role in mediating the daily life experiences of living under a de-facto state that remains unrecognized by the international community to this day. https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/politics-water-northern-cyprus-gendered-symbolisms-and-infrastructures-power
Now we will shift our focus to the concept of deservingness, and it is relations to vulnerability. Drawing upon my fieldwork, I will argue that being deserving of refugee status and rights is proved or performed via a continuous parody of vulnerability. I am calling it a parody, because, vulnerability here does not reflect the complexity of social and political exclusion LGBTI refugees face. Instead, vulnerability reflects only one or two essentialized feature of these exclusions-i.e. the ones that speak to the sensibilities of UNHCR or countries in the Global North. Thus, this approach to vulnerability creates hierarchies within certain forms of social and political exclusions while ignoring others. It also means that being deserving of refugee status and rights depends on refugees' ability to perform a Global North oriented parody of vulnerability. https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/deservingness-and-transnationally-migrating-vulnerabilities-queer-refugees-turkey
https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/socialist-masculinities-turkey-intersection-local-political-violence-1970s-and-global-cold
https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/neoliberal-and-neoconservative-politics-intimacy-turkey-sexting-means-negotiating-new-turkey
Tegiye will raise two important issues in relation to sexuality and gender in Cyprus. The first one is the fact that it was the colonial laws of the British Empire that establish homosexuality as “a crime of unnatural sex”. These laws were in place well into the twentieth-first century, and thus their legacies could be heavily felt on the queer as well as feminist movement in different ways. Tegiye mentions a nostalgic remembering of British colonial times that forgets or neglects to mention such laws under British colonization but instead argues that being a former British colony means having gender equality. But of course, gender inequality was believed to be not a problem only among the natives of the islands. Gender inequality was also attributed to being a problem related to migrants coming from Turkey.
The Turkish invasion and occupation of the Northern part of the island have prevented direct relations between the divided parts of the island. This lack of relationships also included feminist and LGBT movements on both sides, thus also making solidarity links very hard to establish. This division became clearer as Southern Cyprus became a part of the EU while Northern Cyprus remained an unrecognized state. This had a curious effect on NGOization processes of the civil society in Northern Cyprus.
https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/intersectional-resistance-under-british-colonialism-and-turkish-occupation-sexuality-and
In this latest episode, we shift our focus to the legacies of the political violence of the 1970s, specifically in relation to the current socialist-Marxist movement in Turkey and the configurations of socialist masculinities.
One of the legacies is a lingering conservative politics of sexuality amongst the socialist-Marxist movement. Drawing upon his own experiences with the current socialist-Marxist movement as well as his research, Sercan will argue that sexuality is still considered as a matter for the private sphere and, whenever it is politically voiced in public sphere, it can receive backlash from men performing socialist masculinities.
Some within the socialist-Marxist movement also fear being replaced by the feminist and LGBT movements as the main source of oppositional power. Since the political violence of the 1970s and the coup d’état of 1980 weakened the socialist-Marxist movement in Turkey, the increasing influence of feminist and LGBT movement in Turkey posed a threat to the position of men who perform socialist masculinities. Sercan will note that although we can observe socialist-Marxist movement aligning with the feminist and LGBT movements, there are still tendencies to consider these movements as “separatist” or “products" of capitalism or post-modernist academia.
You can access the full episode from here of via this link;
https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/legacies-socialist-masculinities-contemporary-oppositional-politics-turkey
Ezgi will make a compelling case for these symbolic meanings as an important lens through which locals understand the dependent and unequal relations between Northern Cyprus and Turkey. She will also explain how such symbolic meanings play an important role in mediating the daily life experiences of living under a de-facto state that remains unrecognized by the international community to this day. https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/politics-water-northern-cyprus-gendered-symbolisms-and-infrastructures-power
Now we will shift our focus to the concept of deservingness, and it is relations to vulnerability. Drawing upon my fieldwork, I will argue that being deserving of refugee status and rights is proved or performed via a continuous parody of vulnerability. I am calling it a parody, because, vulnerability here does not reflect the complexity of social and political exclusion LGBTI refugees face. Instead, vulnerability reflects only one or two essentialized feature of these exclusions-i.e. the ones that speak to the sensibilities of UNHCR or countries in the Global North. Thus, this approach to vulnerability creates hierarchies within certain forms of social and political exclusions while ignoring others. It also means that being deserving of refugee status and rights depends on refugees' ability to perform a Global North oriented parody of vulnerability. https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/deservingness-and-transnationally-migrating-vulnerabilities-queer-refugees-turkey
https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/socialist-masculinities-turkey-intersection-local-political-violence-1970s-and-global-cold
https://podcasts.ceu.edu/content/neoliberal-and-neoconservative-politics-intimacy-turkey-sexting-means-negotiating-new-turkey