Way Out of the Matrix? Revisiting Knowledge Production in Migration Studies

The Department of International Relations cordially invites you to Dr. Sandra Cvikić's lecture "Way Out of the Matrix? Revisiting Knowledge Production in Migration Studies." The lecture will take place on the 7th of April between 15:00-16:30. 

The event will be hybrid. The physical location is the Çekmeköy Campus’ AB2 building, Room G12. Those who wish to participate via Zoom can register here.

The lecture will be in English.

Abstract

Premised on a critical qualitative sociological inquiry into scholarly/expert knowledge production in Turkey about Syrian refugeedom on the Balkan Route since the 2015/2016 European migration crisis/refugee crisis, this lecture presents a balanced study of knowledge production and the global process of refugeedom while bridging epistemological, methodological, and empirical divergences between critical sociology/sociology of knowledge and migration studies. More so, it provides an insight into how and what kind of scholarly/expert knowledge was produced by Turkish scholars/experts, and to what extent their research findings converge with data collected by their international counterparts. The preliminary research findings have so far unraveled elements of the unknown and unanticipated leaving this critical sociological endeavor open-ended and deeply engaged with the moral, while in a constant struggle to resist the centrifugal forces of contemporary knowledge production about Syrian refugeedom. Therefore, the aim of this lecture is to introduce a subaltern experimental way of doing critical qualitative sociological research in migrations studies – one that is detached from the powerful structural dependency on the hegemony of the Global North knowledge discourse.

Dr. Sandra Cvikić

Sandra Cvikić is a Croatian sociologist. She holds a BA Degree from the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada (Double Major – English and Sociology); an MA Degree from the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK (Contemporary European Studies) as a Chevening Scholar, and a PhD Degree (Croatian Studies/Sociology) from the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Croatian Studies. She is employed by the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Regional Centre Vukovar as a senior Research Associates. Currently she is conducting research at the Özyeğin University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of International Relations as a recipient of Turkish scholarship (TÜBİTAK, BIDEB, 2221-Fellowship Program for Visiting Scientists and Scientists on Sabbatical Leave, 2021/6) under supervision of Prof. dr.sc. Deniz Sert. Her academic interests include qualitative methodology (constructivist grounded theory methodology and critical discourse analysis/Foucauldian discourse analysis), postmodernist critical theory, sociology of knowledge, sociology of war, violence and trauma, totalitarianism, transitional justice, and contemporary refugee studies.