Migrant States, Mobile Economies:
Rethinking the Political in Contemporary Turkey
Thursday, 8 October 2015, 3:30-8:00 PM
Merten Hall 1201
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
Open to the public
This event brings together scholars from anthropology and political science to interrogate the conceptual relationship between state formation and capital accumulation as related but distinct technologies of power in contemporary Turkey. From gold traffic between Turkey and Iran and smuggling economies in Turkey’s Kurdistan to the historical development of energy infrastructures and im/mobilities across the Turkey-Syria border, the authors aim to chronicle the shifting and transnational operations of economic and political power. By exploring states of migrancy as well as economies of mobility in conjunction with state formation and capital accumulation, Migrant States & Mobile Economies aims to rethink the political in both political economy and political theory through the historiography and ethnography of contemporary Turkey.
Schedule
Introductory Remarks
Huseyin Yilmaz, Co-Director, Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies, GMU
Bassam Haddad, Director of the Middle East Studies Program, GMU
Panel 1
Money in Black or Blood? The Political-Moral in the Smuggling Economies of Turkey’s Kurdistan
Firat Bozcali, Stanford University
Rethinking the History of Turkey`s Political Economy: Generating Consent by Infrastructure
Cihan Tekay, CUNY—The Graduate Center
Panel 2
Who/What Can Cross the Border? Mobilities and Immobilities at the Turkey-Syria Border
Elif Sari, Cornell University
Golden Shoes and Tobacco Seats: Scaling Sanctions and Transactions across the Iran/Turkey Border
Emrah Yildiz, Harvard University
Keynote Address
Introduction by Huseyin Yilmaz, Co-Director, Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies
Seeking Refuge: Lip-Sewing and Truth-Telling
Banu Bargu, Associate Professor of Politics, The New School for Social Research
Pizza & Refreshments Served
Sponsored by Middle East & Islamic Studies, Arab Studies Institute, Global Programs, Political Economy Project, Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies, Global Affairs, Middle East Studies Student Assoc., SPGIA
For more information, visit MEIS.GMU.EDU
