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Staff Profile

Dr Deniz Yonucu

Lecturer in Sociology of Crime

Background

https://denizyonucu.com/about-me






 

 

Research

My first book, Police, Provocation, Politics Counterinsurgency in Istanbul (Cornell University Press, 2022), sheds light on counterinsurgency's affect-and-emotion-generating divisive techniques and urban dimensions and shows how counterinsurgent policing strategies work to intervene in the organization of political dissent in a way that both counters existing alignments among dissident populations and prevents emergent ones. It 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 literature on political subjectivities, urban marginality, urban violence, 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 inspirational hauntings.


 

Teaching

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 Newcastle University, 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

 

Newcastle University (2021-):

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

  


Publications