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Staff Profile

Dr Deniz Yonucu

Senior Lecturer

Background

I received my Ph.D. in Social 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 counterinsurgency and policing, surveillance, class, racism, resistance, world building and abolitionist practices of the oppressed, coloniality and memory. 

My first book, Police, Provocation, Politics Counterinsurgency in Istanbul Cornell University Press, 2022) is the winner of the 2023 Anthony Leeds Prize for the best book in urban anthropology. 

 My work has appeared in various leading peer-reviewed journals, including Current Anthropology, Race & Class, IJURR, Social and Legal Studies, the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, City & Society, and Berkeley Journal of Sociology.

 Most of my articles are available on my academia page: https://newcastle.academia.edu/DenizYonucu

 In addition to my academic writing, I also publish opinion pieces in English, Turkish, and German and appear in the international media, including DW, Germany’s international broadcaster, and France24 to discuss politics and human rights issues.

 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, the DAAD and Cornell University.

 I am Directions Section co-editor of the Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR)  and co-founder and co-convenor of the Anthropology of Surveillance Network (ANSUR). I am also a host on New Books Network's Policing, Incarceration and Reform podcast where I interview authors on topics related to policing, surveillance, carcerality, and securitisation and cofounder of the Under Surveillance Podcast.

 Before joining Newcastle University 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, state violence, and resistance.

 

Selected Recent Works

"Police Ethnography, Abolition, Rancière and Political Theology", City & Society, 2025.

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

"The sticky-stalker state subject: surveillance of dissent in Turkey." In Criminalisation of Dissent in Times of Crisis, 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” Current Anthropology. (64) no. 4 (2023), 359–379.

 “Counterinsurgency in Istanbul: Provocative Counterorganization, Violent Interpellation and Sectarian Fears” The British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 49 no. 5 (2022), 896-914.

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

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





 

 

Research

My first book, Police, Provocation, Politics Counterinsurgency in Istanbul (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 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