缅北禁地

I received my Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Cornell University, USA. I hold MA degrees in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago and in Anthropology from Cornell University. My research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of anthropology, political theory, law & society studies, and urban studies. More specifically, my work focuses on the processes of criminalisation, counterinsurgency, policing and surveillance, class and urban marginality, racism, resistance and abolitionist practices of the oppressed, and colonialism. My perspective has been shaped by living, studying, working, and conducting research across multiple continents (Istanbul, Chicago, New York, Ithaca Berlin, Munich, London and 缅北禁地).

I am a fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Advance HE.

My research has been funded by more than 10 institutions across a variety of countries, including the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Newton Fund, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Einstein Foundation, ISRF, the DAAD, Salt Foundation, and Cornell University.

My first book,  Cornell University Press, 2022) is awarded the 2023  by the Critical Urban Anthropology Section of the American Anthropological Association. The Leeds Prize committee praised the book for its “cutting-edge theorising …, combined with extensive, rigorous, and sensitive ethnography that informs political theory in new and exciting ways.” has appeared at American Ethnologist, Cultures and Conflicts, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Sociologia Urbane e Rurale, PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Politics and Rights Review, New Perspectives on Turkey, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Surveillance & Society, International Journal of Middöle East Studies, AllegraNet, The Choice, Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Studies, Napoli Monitor, Lundi Matin, City & Society (Book Forum, 4 reviews and author response).

My current book project, , has been awarded a mid-career fellowship from the Independent Social Research Foundation.

My research has demonstrable real-world impact, informing international human rights policy and asylum decision-making. I have contributed to expert meetings on racism and securitization organized by the Anti-Racial Discrimination Section of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. My research on discrimination against religious minorities in Turkey is cited in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ 2025 General Country Report on Turkey, which informs asylum decision-making concerning citizens of Turkey. I have also prepared expert reports for asylum applicants in the UK.

My work has appeared in various leading peer-reviewed journals, including , ,  , , PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, and .

Most of my academic work is available on my academia page: 

Beyond my academic work, I write literary fiction exploring contemporary social issues. My short stories are published or forthcoming at and Asymptote.

I also in English, Turkish, and German and , including DW, Germany’s international broadcaster, and France24 to discuss politics and human rights issues.

My commitment to research leadership and scholarly community-building is reflected in my sustained efforts to create and support international intellectual networks. I have served as Directions Section Co-Editor of PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review (2021–2024) and will take up the role of Editor of Critical Studies on Security in September 2026. I have also co-founded two international research networks: the Anthropology of Surveillance Network (ANSUR), established in 2021 under the European Association of Social Anthropologists, and the Police and Prisons in the Global South Network, established in 2025. I serve on the board of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA).

At 缅北禁地, I co-convene the Conflict, Peace, and Security Research Group and the Middle East Research Group. am a member of the Power, Space, Politics, and Middle East Research Groups.

Before joining 缅北禁地 in 2021, I worked as a DAAD Visiting Assistant Professor (W2) in Anthropology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and held postdoctoral positions at the Center for Technology and Society at the Technical University of Berlin, the Zentrum Moderner Orient, and the Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin. In 2015, I was a visiting scholar at the European Institute of the LSE. 

I accept PhD students who would like to conduct research on urban marginality, crime, security, policing, abolition, surveillance, racism, political violence, memory, and resistance.

Selected Recent Works

 "Radical possibilities and abolitionist practices: lessons from resistance and world-building in Istanbul and Northern Kurdistan." 1-12 (Early View)

“Anthropology of Crime”. In . 2025.

“Counterinsurgency in Turkey: Coloniality of Paramilitary Forces and Provocative Counterorganisation”. In The Making of Paramilitarism in Turkey (pp. 23-36). Routledge, 2025.

"Police Ethnography, Abolition, Rancière and Political Theology",, 2025.

“Sectarianism as Racism: The Collective Punishment of Alevi Communities in Turkey”, , 65(3), pp.47-68., 2024.

"The sticky-stalker state subject: surveillance of dissent in Turkey." In  pp. 41-58. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2024.

"Racism and policing beyond North America." Political and Legal Anthropology Review 46, no. 1 (2023): 112-113. (with Caroline Mary Parker)

 “Inspirational Hauntings and a Fearless Spirit of Resistance: Negotiating the Undercover Police Surveillance of Racialized Spaces in Istanbul”  (64) no. 4 (2023), 359–379.

Police, provocation, politics: Counterinsurgency in Istanbul. , 2022.

 “Counterinsurgency in Istanbul: Provocative Counterorganization, Violent Interpellation and Sectarian Fears” . 49 no. 5 (2022), 896-914.

“Urban Vigilantism: A study of Anti-terror Law, Politics, and Policing in Istanbul”. , 42 no. 3 (2018): 408-422.

 "The Absent Present Law: An Ethnographic Study of Legal Violence in Turkey”. , 27 no 6 (2018): 716-733.

My current book project, has been awarded a mid-career fellowship from the Independent Social Research Foundation (2027-2028). Through multi-sited research in Germany, the project develops a relational theory of how distinct formations of racism interact, intersect, and generate unexpected political alignments, including support for far-right movements among some migrant-background populations. By examining how citizenship regimes, nationality, migration governance, and legal classifications produce and institutionalize racialized difference, the project contributes to broader debates on law, public policy, racism, and democratic resilience.

My first book,  (Cornell University Press, 2022), provides an ethnographically grounded analysis of the tension between policing and politics and presents a counterintuitive analysis of policing, focusing particular attention on the incitement of counterviolence and perpetual conflict by the state security apparatus. Rather than focusing on counterinsurgency’s strategies for producing docile and compliant citizens, I focus on the provocative aspects of policing. I argue in the book that counterinsurgency is a permanent and preventive war on politics. Engaging also with the literatures on political subjectivities, urban marginality, urban violence, racism and coloniality, memory, and resistance the book sheds light on the world-building practices of the oppressed and fearless resistance that is informed by what I call .

The Leeds Prize committee praised the book for its “cutting-edge theorising …, combined with extensive, rigorous, and sensitive ethnography that informs political theory in new and exciting ways.” The research was supported by grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the British Council-Newton Fund, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, among others. Beyond the monograph, this research trajectory has produced six peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, including Current Anthropology, Social & Legal Studies, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Race & Class, and the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, as well as five book chapters and several shorter pieces written for broader public audiences.

A central focus of my recent research has been expanding the analytical framework for studying police racisms beyond the United States. Building on a journal section and an online conversation series I co-edited for PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, I have co-edited Global Ethnographies of Police Racism with Caroline Parker, currently under review at Cornell University Press. The volume examines racialized policing across China, India, Italy, Israel/Palestine, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Kurdistan, attending to both formal legal structures and extra-legal mechanisms of control.

 Building on my work on counterinsurgency and anti-terrorism law, another strand of my research examines Kurdish experiments with democratic autonomy as forms of alternative, non-carceral justice in a region shaped by a history of armed conflict and by women-centred counterinsurgency waged against it. Engaging with Indigenous feminist and settler-colonial literatures, this work brings a new dimension to our understanding of gender and counterinsurgency: political-infrastructural elimination—the targeting of the organisations, institutions, political structures, and social relations through which colonised and Indigenous women exercise collective political agency. The project investigates how women-led municipal structures challenge conventional paradigms of political and legal organization while fostering democratic practice and grassroots resilience. Through this work, I contribute to debates in feminist political and legal theory, radical democracy, indigeneity, and subaltern law-making. The project has generated four scholarly outputs: an essay published in Justice, Power and Resistance; an article forthcoming in Security Dialogue; a co-edited series on the Kurdish movement; and a short piece on the transnational circulation of lawfare for the Emergent Conversations series of PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review.

Both my research and teaching are guided by my commitment to interdisciplinary and decolonial approaches to pressing social issues. My teaching philosophy is based on the development of critical thinking skills and helping students hone their ability to denaturalize social relations through explorations of the structures and patterns that have shaped our historical present.

Before joining 缅北禁地, I taught at various universities including the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the Free University of Berlin, Cornell University, and Bosphorus University.

Selected Teaching Experience

缅北禁地 (2021-):

Perpetual Wars: Crime, Policing and (In)Security (MA)

Security: Politics, Space, and Society (MA)

Critical Approaches to Security and Policing (BA)

Crime and Inequalities (BA)

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (2018-2020):

Decolonizing Anthropology (BA)

The Anthropology of Policing (BA&MA)

The Anthropology of Crime (BA &MA)

The Anthropology of Law (BA & MA)

Critical Approaches to the Violence in the Middle East (BA)

Free University of Berlin (2017- 2018):

Urban Anthropology (MA)

 The Anthropology of Human Rights (MA)

Sabanci University (2014)

The Anthropology of the State (BA & MA)

Bosphorus University (2010-2014)

Introduction to Sociology (BA)

Society and State (BA)

• Articles

  • Yonucu D. . Justice, Power, Resistance 2026, 9(2), 286–297.
  • Yonucu D. . Race & Class 2024, 63(3), 47-68.
  • Yonucu D. . City & Society 2024, 36(1), 5-6.
  • Yonucu D. . City & Society 2024, 36(3), 141-145.
  • Yonucu D. . Current Anthropology 2023, 64(4), 359-473.
  • Yonucu D. . British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 2022, 49(5), 896-914.
  • Yonucu D, Suciyan T. . Critical Times 2020, 3(2), 300-311.
  • Yonucu D. . International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 2018, 42(3), 408-422.
  • Yonucu D. . Social & Legal Studies 2018, 27(6), 716-733.
  • Yonucu Deniz. Şehir, egemenlik ve çatışma mekânları. Toplum ve Bilim 2018, 146, 62-71. In Preparation.
  • Yonucu D. . Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 2018, 50(3), 356-357.
  • Yonucu D. . Birikim 2014, 297, 29-37.
  • Yonucu Deniz. Capitalism, desperation and urgency. Red Thread 2011, 3, 1-10.
  • Yonucu Deniz. A Story of a Squatter Neighborhood: From the place of the" dangerous classes" to the" place of danger". Berkeley Journal of Sociology 2008, 52, 50-72.

• Authored Book

  • Yonucu D. . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022.

• Book Chapters

  • Yonucu D. . In: Di Ronco A; Selmini R, ed. Criminalisation of Dissent in Times of Crisis. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.
  • Yonucu D. . In: Yalçınkaya, A, ed. Aleviler ve Cumhuriyet. Ankara: Dipnot Yayınları, 2025, pp.147-164.
  • Yonucu D. . In: Isik A; Has O, ed. The Making of Paramilitary Violence in Turkey. London: Routledge, 2025.
  • Yonucu D. . In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025.
  • Yonucu D. . In: Yücesoy, F; Çavdar, O; Aslan, S, ed. Sosyal Bilimler Perspektifinden Aleviler ve Alevilik –2. Istanbul: Utopya Yayinevi, 2024, pp.219-231.
  • Yonucu D. . In: Cem Özatalay, ed. Toplumsal Yapı Türkiye'de Eşitsizlik, Tahakküm, Değişim. Istanbul: Iletisim, 2024, pp.404-421.
  • Yonucu D, Yanik A. . In: Ozvaris H, ed. Adalet Atlasi. Istanbul: Iletisim, 2023, pp.75-89.
  • Yonucu Deniz. “Var-Yok Hukuk: Türkiye'de Hukukun Şiddetinin Etnografik Analizi”. In: Deger, Ozan, ed. Düşmanı Yargılamak. Ankara: Zoe Kitap, 2020, pp.212 – 241.
  • Bora T, Yonucu D. . In: Özyürek, E; Özpınar, G; Altındiş, E, ed. Authoritarianism and Resistance in Turkey: Conversations on Democratic and Social Challenges. Cham: Springer, 2019, pp.229-235.
  • Yonucu D. . In: Ayfer Bartu Candan, Cenk Özbay, ed. Yeni İstanbul Çalışmaları: Sınırlar, Mücadeleler, Açılımlar. Istabul: Metis, 2014.
  • Yonucu Deniz. European Istanbul and Its Enemies: Istanbul’s Working Class as the Constitutive Outside of the Modern/European Istanbul. In: D. Reuschke; ‎M. Salzbrunn; ‎K. Schönhärl, ed. The Economies of Urban Diversity: Ruhr Area and Istanbul. Palgrave, 2013.
  • Gönen Z, Yonucu D. Legitimizing violence and segregation: Neoliberal discourses on crime and criminalization of urban poor populations in Turkey. In: Bourke, A; Dafnos, T; Kip, M, ed. Lumpencity: Discourses of Marginality, Marginalizing Discourses. Red Quill Books, 2011, pp.75-103. In Press.

• Creative Writing

  • Yonucu D. . Asymptote 2026. Asymptote Journal. In Press.
  • Yonucu D. . Anthropology and Humanism 2026. 51(1), e70078.

• Editorials

  • Parker CM, Yonucu D. . PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 2024, 47(2), 283-284.
  • Yonucu D, Parker C. . PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 2024, 47(1), 88-89.
  • Yonucu D, Parker CM. . Political and Legal Anthropology Review 2023, 46(1), 112-113.
  • Parker CM, Yonucu D. . Political and Legal Anthropology Review 2023, 46(2), 264-265.
  • Parker CM, Yonucu D, Curtis J. Introducing Directions Section. Political and Legal Anthropology Review 2022, 45(1). In Preparation.

• Online Publications

  • Yonucu D, Schamberger K. . PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 2025. Available at: .
  • Celik A, Yonucu D. . PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 2025. Available at: .
  • Yonucu D, Peacock V, Steenberg R, Verdery K. . PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 2024. Available at: .
  • Yonucu D. . Santa Barbara, California: Society and Space, 2024. Available at: .
  • Cooper AE, Yonucu D. . Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA), 2023. Available at: .
  • Yonucu D, Parker CM. . Hoboken: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 2023. Available at: .
  • Yonucu D. . BirGün Pazar, 2023. Available at: .
  • Yonucu D. . Urban Violence Research Network Blog, 2022. Available at: .
  • Yonucu D. . Urban History Association, 2022. Available at: .
  • Yonucu D. Turkey’s United Front Against Kurds and Democracy. 2017. Available at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/turkey-s-united-front-against-kurds-and-democracy/.
  • Yonucu D. Colonial Envy and the Success of the Kurdish Political Struggle. 2017. Available at: https://politicalandlegalanthro.org/2017/05/11/colonial-envy-and-the-unbearable-success-of-the-kurdish-political-struggle/.
  • Yonucu D. United in Nationalism: Notes on the Aftermath of the Failed Coup Attempt in Turkey. jadaliyya, 2016. Available at: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/33659.
  • Evren E, Yonucu D. Turkey’s War and Struggle of Its Academics. ZMO Bulletin, 2016. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/26221539/Turkey_s_War_and_the_Struggle_of_its_Academics. In Preparation.

• Reviews

  • Yonucu D. . Current Anthropology 2025, 66(1), 64-65.
  • Yonucu D. . Allegralab 2021.