Biography
I am currently a Research Fellow at Sidney Sussex College. Previously, I received my PhD and MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, and before this I studied at Concordia University in Montreal and Istanbul Technical University.
My research focuses on migration, citizenship, labour, moral life under capitalism, environmental anthropology, and the anthropology of Turkey and the Middle East. My doctoral research was based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey’s informal recycling sector and examined how the arrival of migrant workers has altered citizens’ ideas about economic and political justice. I am currently completing my first monograph on nativism and migrant labour in Turkey.
Research
Migration; citizenship; moral life under capitalism; waste and recycling; environmental anthropology; the anthropology of Turkey and the Middle East.
Publications
2025. Yildirim, Kevin. "Waste Donations: Shopkeeper–Waste Picker Relations in Istanbul and the Limits of Hospitable Giving." Cultural Anthropology 40(3): 383–409.
2025. Yildirim, Kevin. "The Denial of Moral Complexity: Accusations against Migrant Waste Pickers by Turkish Scrap Dealers in Istanbul." Journal of Cultural Economy, 1–15.
2017. "Poorness is Ghettoness': Urban Renewal and hip-Hop Acculturation in Sulukule, Istanbul". Landscapes of Music in Istanbul: A Cultural Politics of Place and Exclusion. Papadopolous, A and Duru, A. (eds). Transcript-Verlag. pp. 85-112.
