CUSAS Talk: Dr Özlem Biner (University of Kent)

Precarious solidarities: ‘Poisonous knowledge’ and the Academics for Peace in times of authoritarianism

Based  on  the  case  of  Academics  for  Peace  (BAK)  in  Turkey,  in this seminar, I discuss the conditions and trajectories that constitute precariousness and solidarity in the academic context of Turkey and the United Kingdom. Reflecting on a self‐ethnographic narrative that revolves around my long term ethnographic research and writing about the precarious life and violence in the Kurdish region, I engage with  the question of how to live an academic life when what we do and what we produce is perceived by both the public and the state as acts of potential threat to the integrity of nations and the well‐being of societies. What types of solidarity and forms of vulnerability and resilience emerge from these situations? How might the production of knowledge be transformed into a means and a place of solidarity?

After the talk, we will continue the discussion informally at a nearby pub.