I am a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Law and Criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London. My academic journey has included research and teaching positions at Yale University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, SciencesPo Paris, and Stanford University, where I was honoured as the Christopher Family International Fellow at the Humanities Center. As a scholar of Islam, the Middle East, and Muslim diasporas, my research sits at the dynamic intersection of political sociology and the anthropology of religion, with a particular focus on Turkey and the Kurds.

My book, Kurdish Hizbullah in Turkey: Islamism, Violence and the State (Pluto Press, 2017; İletişim, 2021, third edition), offers a sharp and compelling analysis of how a clandestine and violent organization evolved into a social movement and political party, reshaping Kurdish political life in Turkey. My research has been published in leading journals, including Current Anthropology, South Atlantic Quarterly, Contemporary Islam, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Social Research: An International Quarterly, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, and Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies. Additionally, I have contributed book chapters to The Cambridge History of the Kurds and The Oxford Handbook of Religion in Turkey.

Over the years, my work has been supported by major funding bodies, including the British Academy Newton Advanced Fellowship (Queen Mary University of London, 2015–2017), the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (University of Manchester, DARE Project, 2018), and the prestigious Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship, which facilitated my research across Yale, LSE, and SciencesPo Paris (2018–2022). Currently, I am part of the Collaborative Interdisciplinary Team of Experts (CITE Scholars) in the European Research Council’s Starting Grant project TAKHAYYUL (University College London) and the Principal Investigator for a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant.

Beyond academia, I am deeply engaged in public scholarship, contributing to media discussions on pressing social and political issues. My op-eds have appeared in Le Monde, Open Democracy, Jadaliyya, Birikim and Gazete Duvar, and I have provided expert analysis in interviews with Al Monitor, France 24, Junge Welt, and Halk TV, among others.

I have also embraced ethnographic storytelling through film. My documentary, The Seven Doors (2019), follows seven Kurdish students in search of alternative educational models. Screened at major festivals and universities, the film has earned prestigious awards, including The Jean Rouch Award from the American Anthropological Association’s Society for Visual Anthropology’s Film and Media Festival (2020) and the Merit Award in Youth Issues from Docs Without Borders Film Festival (2020).

Recently, I co-edited two special issues: one in Contemporary Islam (2024, Volume 18, Issue 1), which advances the critical study of Islam and Muslim societies, and another in South Atlantic Quarterly (2024, Volume 123, Issue 4), which pushes forward debates in decolonial thought and methodologies in relation to Kurdish and Middle East studies. My article, Decolonizing Minds and Education: Critical Pedagogy and Epistemic Disobedience in Kurdistan in the journal of South Atlantic Quarterly, contributes to decolonial thought and methodology, highlighting the transformative power of education.

As a critical pedagogue, I have designed and taught courses at Yale University, Bingöl University in Turkey, and Royal Holloway, University of London, developing innovative pedagogical approaches that challenge dominant epistemologies. My commitment to transformative education is reflected in both my research and my teaching, particularly in my work on decolonizing education.

I welcome PhD students interested in advancing research in political sociology, anthropology of religion, critical Muslim studies, Kurdish studies, and decolonial thought and methodologies.

Anthropology of religion; political sociology; ethnography and visual anthropology; the Middle East; Turkey; Kurds and Kurdistan; Kurdish oral literature and ethnomusicology; Islamism and transnational Islamic movements; Kurdish Hizbullah; political violence; youth; radicalization; civil society; Muslims in the west; decolonizing epistemologies and critical pedagogies

CR1014 Introduction to Sociology 

CR3009 Race, Ethnicity and Migration 

CR3011 Dissertation (Crim & Soc.)

CR2019 Sociology of Contemporary Society