AYSEN ÜSTÜBICI
Koç University
»Membership in Transition: Citizenship and Immigration Policies in Turkey and Morocco«
ABSTRACT
The dissertation seeks to compare the transformation of policy making and implementation in the realm of migration and citizenship as well as the gendered experience of migrants in Turkey and Morocco. In both countries the migration patterns are in transition: they are conventional emigration and newly emerging immigration countries and are located in the periphery of the EU. Within this context, the meaning of “membership” as encoded in laws and implemented by state as well as in the minds of migrants is scrutinized. By conducting ethnographies in state departments and by focusing on how migrants conceive of their legal status, the research aims to reveal the interaction between the implementation of laws and the experience of citizenship and legal status. Relying on feminist perspectives on membership and rights, the project highlights the gendered implications of migration policies.
BIOGRAPHY
Aysen Üstübici is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science and researcher at the Migration Research Center (MiReKoc) at Koç University in Istanbul. She holds B.A. degrees (high honours) in Sociology and Political Science from Bogaziçi University and an M.Sc. degree in Gender, Development, Globalization from London School of Economics. Her M.Sc. dissertation looked at gendered forms of resistance and mobilization in the global factory. Since 2009, she has assisted courses on international migration and has actively participated in the quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis in different parts of Turkey in the context of the project EUMAGINE, funded within the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union.
PUBLICATIONS
Aysen Üstübici (2009): Export-Processing Zones and Gendering the Resistance: ‘Women’s Strike’ in Antalya Free Trade Zone in Turkey. LSE Gender Institute Working Paper Series, March 2009.