How do the city and urban ways of life influence democracy? Sociologist and visiting scholar Berna Turam (Northeastern University) explores how urban space can create new and creative politics, particularly in divided cities, which face multiple challenges of inclusion/exclusion.
photo from northeastern.edu
Vrije Universiteit Brussel and 4CITIES are delighted to welcome Prof. Dr. Berna Turam (Northeastern University, Boston, MA) as Erasmus Mundus Visiting Scholar during the month of December 2016. In addition to a series of lectures, she will participate in the Urban Analysis 1 & Urban Sociology courses together with Eva Swyngedouw & Perrine Devleeshouwer, respectively. Prof. Turam will discuss and teach anthropological methods.
Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Northeastern
“Berna Turam received her PhD from McGill University, department of sociology. She has an abiding interest in conducting ethnography on state-society interaction, government and the city, urban space and democracy, political Islam and ordinary Muslims, religion and politics, secularisms, and politics of gender Middle East. She is the author of Gaining Freedoms: Claiming Space in Istanbul and Berlin (Stanford University Press, 2015); Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement (Stanford University Press, 2007), and and the editor of Secular State and Religious Society: Two Forces at Play in Turkey (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). In addition, she published articles in peer-reviewed journals including British Journal of Sociology, Nations and Nationalism and International Feminist Journal of Politics, Journal of Democracy and International Journal of Urban and Regional Studies.”
Prof. Turam “co-edited a special issue, entitled “Secular Muslims?” in Comparative Studies of South America, Africa and the Middle East. Most recently, her article, entitled “Primacy of Space in Politics: Bargaining Space, Power and Freedom in an Istanbul neighborhood,” won the best article award from the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Currently, she is conducting research on the politics of LGBTQ under the pro-Islamic government in Turkey, and writing a paper on political pluralism commissioned by the Global Center of Pluralism, an initiative of Aga Khan and the government of Canada.” more on Prof. Turam at northeastern.edu
