PhD STUDENT, SOCIOCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
she/her/hers
Hazal Aydin (she/her) is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in sociocultural anthropology. She is currently conducting ethnographic fieldwork with left-wing activists, civil society workers, and human rights advocates in Istanbul. Her research interests span political affect, resistance, nationalism, migration, and gender and sexuality in Turkey and Europe. She is also a co-host and co-creator of the Imagining Turkey podcast series. To learn more about Aydin’s research and publications, visit her webpage.
In Spring 2025, Hazal received a CISS Summer mini-grant to support her work on her project “Decision to Stay: Collective Emotions and Belonging in Istanbul’s ‘Rescued Territories’” investigating how oppositional groups in authoritarian Turkey create alternative forms of belonging through spaces of resistance, examining how political emotions shape decisions to stay rather than migrate. Learn more in our featured article.
In Spring 2026, Hazal received a summer mini-grant for her project draws on ethnographic fieldwork with left-wing activist communities in Istanbul to examine the affective, ethical, and political commitments that lead relatively privileged activists to “stay with politics” under conditions of authoritarianism.