Geographies and Biographies of Flight

Project Description

The Ottoman Empire will be in the focus of this workshop which will broadly involve visual elicitation and group reflection on selected archival material such as images, maps, and clips. Topics covered will include diversity, exclusion, and forced mobility of groups and individuals, mainly during the time from the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 up to the foundation of the Republic in 1923. War trauma has both immediate and geographically and temporally extended effects. While mostly neglected, personal histories are of crucial importance for locating, examining, and reversing these effects.

Therefore, the visuals will be curated to reflect the human condition by emphasising the everyday experience of forced migration, military violence, and nation building. Following a microhistorical perspective, the archival material will facilitate group reflection and discussion on persistent schemes of exclusion that oppress certain ethnic minorities to the day.

Drawing on the visual elicitation method (Rose, 2016) in social inquiry, the workshop will induce reflexive thinking, hands-on engagement, and collective discussion on continuous patterns of exclusions, corridors of mobility, and diversity. Thus, the workshop will examine the similarities between the stories from one hundred years ago and today as well as the implications of World War I on contemporary society on a personal, microhistorical level.  That way, the workshop will bring the sentiment of “never again” to life.

This workshop is provided by

The Karakutu Association was established in 2014 in order to remember past human rights violations and in the belief that learning from history is crucial for the search of justice and peace. Its major areas of work are collective memory and facing the past. Karakutu’s mission is to share different point of views with society, especially with young people in order to reveal the narratives of parties that are ignored, suppressed and marginalised by official history.

Teamer

ASLI DURU

Germany

  • Has a PhD in Geography and held postdoctoral positions at the University of Munich and the Open University (UK)
  • Marie Sklodowska Curie Research Fellow in the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford
  • Specialised on visual and mobile methods and research-creation methodologies with regards to the intersections of gender, exclusion and violence in cities

 

SEVAL GÜLEN

Turkey

  • Studied Sociology at Middle East Technical University (TUR) and Boğaziçi University (TUR)
  • Working on her PhD at Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, Boğaziçi University (TUR)
  • Trainer and mentor of Memory Journey at Karakutu Association

 

SEVINÇ COŞKUN

Turkey

  • Studied Political Science at Sabancı University
  • Pursuing her MA in Human Rights Law at Istanbul Bilgi University
  • Programme Director at Karakutu Association since 2017