I had developed this site in 2009 mainly as a medium of communication with current and potential students. Now that I am not working as a university professor any longer and get academic inquiries mainly from academia.edu and reserachgate, I decided to leave only some of the previous content from 2012 and added my art projects and events I was involved in the last five years in Turkey. Links to some of my anthropological work can be found on the publications page. The older list of virtual places I find useful and inspiring to visit are still here with minimal additions.
Living both in Vancouver and Ankara, not managing to keep up with friends and colleagues in the other countries (Norway, Azerbaijan and Moldova) that have been significant part of my life yet not using Facebook, I decided to use this page to put some update about my whereabouts and activities.
Biographic info
In 1987 I left a sociology MA in Turkey (at METU) in order to study anthropology in Norway. All my graduate training in social anthropology is from University of Oslo, Norway. Prior to joining the University of Victoria Anthropology Department in July 2004 (I had a fun office until 2011 summer), I held a tenure track position at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta. I have a research experience from Turkey, Norway, Azerbaijan and Moldova. My doctoral work was on the Gagauz nation-building and place-making project. My post PhD research was on the flow of sexual and domestic labour from the former Soviet Union, with a special focus on Moldova and Turkey. Following that I briefly worked on ritual kinship ties among the Gagauz population. I realize now (2019) that this bio is written from the perspective of 2009 and inserting bits and pieces makes the narrative slightly funny.
In June 2012 relocating to Ankara after 26 years , I continued with graduate supervision and committee work attending to the dissertaion defenses through Skype. My last supervisory responsibility ended in December 2103 and in 2016 my membership to graduate faculty of UVic also ended. I have worked at Tepav (Turkish Economic Policy Research Foundation) from August 2012 to November 2013 as analyst and director to Russian Center. Until late 2014 I worked on short projects as in the capacities such as observer, impact analyst and trainer. I chose assignments that allowed me to visit parts of Turkey that I did not have a chance to see earlier mainly on gender-related projects. I occasionally gave guest lectures. While continuing these short term assignments, for a year (2015-16) I worked as a senior researcher within a EU 7th. Framework Project “Security and democracy in the neighbourhood: the case of the Caucasus. Socio-economic sciences and Humanities”: Intra-and Inter-Societal Sources of Instability in the Caucasus and EU Opportunities to Respond in Ankara Policy Center and acted as a gender advisor. I also spent a year as a project manager of EU project Enhancement of Participatory Democracy in Turkey: Monitoring Gender Equality at CEİD in Ankara. As of early 2019, I am trying to spend minimum time for income generating activities but give priority to parent care, research and art projects. I am a member of Ankara Art Initiative (Asi Keci). Here is a recent Keynote presentation we gave to industrial design students (Faculty of Architecture) at Middle East Technical University about Asi Keçi.
HD
header photo: Okan Candemir
Hülya Demirdirek 