21.12.2023 - 21.12.2023
Navigating the Other of Other:The Dom in Turkey
Özyeğin Üniversitesi
Orman Sk
Nişantepe Mahallesi, Çekmeköy, İstanbul 34794
Nurcan Baysal is a human rights defender, consultant, journalist and writer. After finishing Ankara University Faculty of Political Science, she received her master’s degree from Bilkent University and finished the Columbia University Leadership Programme and the Gender, Macroeconomy and International Economy Program at the University of Utah. She worked for more than 10 years (1998-2008) for UNDP on poverty and development projects. She was the coordinator of Husnu Ozyegin Foundation Rural Development Programme between 2008 and 2013. She is one of the founders of the Diyarbakır Institute for Political and Social Research (DISA), the Development Centre Association and the Platform to Save Women Kidnapped by ISIS. She is one of the Middle East advisors of the Global Fund for Women and the Urgent Action Fund for Women. She is also one of the founders of the Women's Labor and Employment Platform (KEİG) in Turkey. Baysal won the Women's World Summit Foundation (WWSF) prize for Women's Creativity in Rural Life in 2010 and the 'Turkey's Changemakers' award in 2012. In 2018, she was named Global Laureate for Human Rights Defenders at Risk by Front Line Defenders. In 2017 she was awarded the “Brave Women Journalists Award” presented by the Italian Women Journalists Association. She also took the DW Freedom of Speech Award in 2020.
Speakers:
Kemal Vural Tarlan has been conducting visual sociology and anthropology research among Dom Gypsies communities living in the Middle East since 2000. His studies, articles and photos were featured in numerous international symposia, congresses, exhibitions and other events. He has written penned articles on the rights of refugees from the Middle East and worked as an activist. In 2013 and 2016, he worked on ‘’Syria in Transit’’, an exhibition of photography, videos, sounds and objects on Syrian refugees from the Turkish border to the UK. The exhibition went on a tour of London, Berlin, Kiel, Madrid, Istanbul, and Gaziantep, Frankfurt. He is a member of the International Federation of Journalists and is a member of the European Sociological Association. He lives in Gaziantep and is the General Coordinator of Kırkayak Kültür and the Head of the Center for Migration and Cultural Studies. He has been conducting cultural and anthropological research on the Gypsy Communities living in the Middle East. Since 2011, he has been conducting research on Syrian refugees, immigration theories and social cohesion. He had been lecturing on photography and photojournalism and ethics as a visiting lecturer at Gaziantep University Communication Faculty until 2021. He is a board member of the Cross-Regional Center for Refugees and Migrants (CCRM) network in Beirut.
Zühal Gezicier has been working at Kırkayak Kültür since 2016. She is also one of the founding members of Romani Godi Memory Studies Association. In 2019, she completed her master's degree at Gaziantep University Institute of Migration, Department of Women's Studies. She wrote her master's thesis on Dom people, to whom she also belongs, on "Transformation of Gender Perception in Dom Society" and worked on gender roles that transformed with the changing livelihood patterns during the transition from nomadic life to settled life. As of September 2023, she took academic English courses, social-anthropology, Roma Identity, Migration and Human Rights courses as an RGPP student in the Roma Studies programme at Central European University (CEU) in Vienna. She wrote her dissertation on 'Dispossession of the Body in the case of Dom Women during the process of transition from craft nomadism to informal economy'. She has been working on the Dom people living in the Middle East. She works especially on Dom women and precariat in informal economy, dispossession of the body and women's poverty. She is interested in feminist movements in the Middle East, Gender and Social Anthropology. Her aim is to utilise these sciences in her studies on Dom communities.
