Özge Yaka has received her PhD in Sociology from Lancaster University. Since then, she has held various positions in Turkey, France, and Germany, supported by Einstein, Gerda Henkel, and Alexander von Humboldt Foundations. Her research interests include social and environmental movements, protest and local conflicts, critical and feminist theory, theories of justice and environmental justice, body, sense, affect, memory and migration. Besides her positions at the Institute of Geographical Sciences, she is associated with the MERGE (Migration and the Middle East) research network based at Humboldt University. She is a member of the Global Young Academy (GYA), based at Leopoldina, German Academy of Sciences. She is also a founding member of the Berlin-based collective Ishtirak which organizes academically informed discussions on society and politics in the Middle East and North Africa.

Monographs

2023 Fighting for the River: Gender, Body and Agency in the Struggles against Hydropower, under contract with the University of California Press.

2011 Transformation of Turkey’s Cyprus Policy: From a National Cause to an Impediment, Lap Lambert.

Articles in peer reviewed journals

forthcoming “More-than-human lifeworlds: ethics, ontology and relationality in the struggles against hydropower in Turkey”, Society and Natural Resources, (commissioned for the special volume “What is at Stake? Ontological Dimensions of Environmental Conflicts”).

2021 “Genre, corps et agentivité politique: analyser l’activisme environnement des femmes avec Merleau-   Ponty” (Gender, body and political agency: analysing women’s environmental activism with Merleau-Ponty, translated to French by Jerome Melancon), Tumultus 56, 93-113.

2020 “Justice as relationality: socio-ecological justice in the context of anti-hydropower movements in Turkey”. Die Erde: Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin 151(2-3), 167-180. 

2019 “Rethinking justice: struggles for environmental commons and the notion of socio-ecological justice”, Antipode (SSCI) 51(1), 353-372.

Translated to Chinese by Kangkang Yang and published as 奥兹格·雅卡,杨抗抗.重思正义:环境公地斗争与社会生态正义建构[J].国外社会科学前沿 in Studies in Foreign Social Sciences 2020 (4), 22-32.

2019 “Gender and framing: gender as a main determinant of frame variation in Turkey’s anti- hydropower movement”. Women’s Studies International Forum 74, 154-161.

2017 “A feminist-phenomenology of women’s activism against hydropower plants in Turkey’s Eastern Black Sea Region”. Gender, Place and Culture (SSCI) 24 (6), 869-889.

2016 “Why not EU?: dynamics of the changing Turkish attitudes towards the EU membership”. Journal of Contemporary European Studies (SSCI) 24 (1), 149-170.

2015 “Hegemony in the making: TUSIAD’s hegemonic role in the context of Turkey’s EU membership process. Spectrum: Journal of Global Studies 7 (1), 91-114.

2015 “From spatial to relational: transforming the metaphor of periphery”.

Rethinking periphery and center in Europe – special volume of Dialogi:

Journal of Culture and Society, 8-17

Translated to Slovenian and published in a separate volume as “Od prostorskega k relacijskemu: preobrazba metafore periferije”, Dialogi 51(11-12), 6-15.

2014 with Serhat Karakayali,“The spirit of Gezi: recomposition of political subjectivities in Turkey”. New Formations 83, 117-138.

2014 "Neoliberalization in Turkey and in the UK – a critical perspective”. Atılım Social Sciences Journal 4 (1), 5-23.

2011 “Ulusal dava’dan ayakbağına: Kıbrıs siyasetinin dönüşümü” (From a national cause to an impediment: transformation of Turkey’s Cyprus policy- improved version) Memleket Siyaset Yönetim 16.

Book Reviews

2021 Review of Embodying geopolitics: Generations of women’s activism in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon by Nicola Pratt (University of California Press). Space and Society 26 (1).

Chapters in edited volumes

2021 “Migration and democracy. Reclaiming democracy from its nativist/nationalist closure,” in: J. Mackert, B. S. Turner and H. Wolf (eds.) The Condition of Democracy, Vol. 2, 54-68.

2017 with Serhat Karakayali “Emergent infrastructures: solidarity, spontaneity and encounter at Istanbul’s Gezi Park uprising” in G. Brown, A. Feigenbaum, F. Frenzel and P. McCurdy (eds.) Protest camps in international context: Spaces, infrastructures and media of resistance, Policy Press, 53-69.  

2016 with Serhat Karakayali “Humor, revolt and subjectivity” in A. Obenprantacher and A. Siclodi (eds.) Subjectivation in political theory and contemporary practices, Palgrave Macmillan, 203-218.

A shorter version published in Bosnian as “Humor, pobuna i subjeckivnost” in I. Hošić and A. Husak (eds.) KRIZA, umjetnost, akcija (Crisis, art, action), 132-141.

2016 “HES karşıtı mücadeleler ve sosyal bilimlerde yeni ufuklar” (Struggles against hydropower plants and new horizons in social sciences) concluding chapter in Aksu, Erensu and Erdem (eds.) Sudan sebepler: Türkiye’de neoliberal su-enerji politikaları ve direnişler (Neoliberal politics of water and energy in Turkey and resistance), İletişim, 471-479.

2010 “‘Ulusal dava’dan ‘ayakbağı’na: Sermaye, AKP ve Kıbrıs siyasetinin dönüşümü” (From a National Cause to an Impediment: Capital, AKP and the Transformation of Turkey’s Cyprus Policy) in Ç. Sümer and F. Yaşlı (eds.), Hegemonyadan diktatoryaya: AKP ve liberal-muhafazakar ittifak (From hegemony to dictatorship: AKP and liberal-conservative alliance), Tan Kitabevi, 385-431.

2010 with Cemil Yıldızcan, “Çözülen ne: otoriterizm mi demokrasi mi?” (What is being dissolved: authoritarianism or democracy?) in Ç. Sümer and F. Yaşlı (eds.), Hegemonyadan diktatoryaya: AKP ve liberal-muhafazakar ittifak, Tan Kitabevi, 237-263.

Public outreach – Contributions to online portals, magazines etc. (selection)

2021 “Özlem Türeci” in A-Z of Hope. GYA Connections 9. The Magazine of the Global Young Academy, Climate Issue, 29-31. https://globalyoungacademy.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Connections-issue-9-web-version.pdf

2020 with Lisa Herzog, “Academic precarity is bad for everyone, but it’s even worse for scholars at risk” Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/academic-precarity-bad-everyone-its-even-worse-scholars-risk

2020 “Research as a transformative practice: methodology, practice and positionality”. Feministische Geo-RundMail 83, Theme Issue: Feminist Research Practice in Geography: Snapshots, Reflections, Concepts, 6-10. https://ak-feministische-geographien.org/rundmail/

2020 “Justice in a more-than-human world”. GYA Connections 8. The Magazine of the Global Young Academy, Climate Issue, 29-31.

https://globalyoungacademy.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Connections-issue-8.pdf

2020 with Flavia Ferreira Pires, “Chapter 1: Introductory thoughts”. Motherhood in Science – How children change our academic careers. Global Young Academy Women in Science Project Group, 5-7. https://globalyoungacademy.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Motherhood-in-Science_web.pdf

2020 “Chapter 17: Being a mother in a precarious academic world”. Motherhood in Science – How children change our academic careers. Global Young Academy Women in Science Project Group, 75-79. https://globalyoungacademy.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Motherhood-in-Science_web.pdf

2018 “Yemenli çocukların canı” (The lives of Yemeni children). Gazete Duvar (online news portal).

https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/forum/2018/08/04/yemenli-cocuklarin-cani

2015 “İklim adaleti sosyal hareketleri birleştirebilir mi?” (“Can climate justice unite the social movements?”). Bianet (online news portal).

http://bianet.org/bianet/toplum/169995-iklim-adaleti-sosyal-hareketleri-birlestirebilir-mi