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Kumru Toktamis

Associate Professor

Email
ktoktami@pratt.edu

A political sociologist whose historical-comparative, theoretically eclectic, culturally informed research focuses on de/democratization,  state formation, political violence, social movements, nationalism, and ethnic and gender politics in the Middle East.  Her work has been translated into Spanish, Greek, Sorani Kurdish, and Turkish, and she participated in feminist translation collectives to translate works of prominent women such as Susan Meiselas and imprisoned Kurdish female politicians. She has been a transnational activist, human rights researcher, educator, and occasional columnist since the last century. She worked for Human Rights Watch for more than a decade documenting human rights violations in Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s and wrote a dissertation on the relationship between Turkish state formation and the Kurdish mobilizations since the end of World War I at the New School for Social Research, while she was raising her son Mavi. She is the co-editor of Peter Lang Publishing’s section on Culture, Society, and Political Economy in Turkey.  She was one of the signatories of the statement by the Academics for Peace who, as a group, was awarded Aachen Peace Prize in 2016.

 

M.A., Ph.D., The New School Social Research.

B.A., Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey;

 

Peer- reviewed Edited Volumes
Toktamis, K., David, I. eds. (under review to be published in 2024) Repression and Resistance during the AKP regime in Turkey, Peter Lang Publishers.

Toktamis, K., David, I. (2018). Special Issue Repression and Resistance: Fragments of Kurdish Politics under the AKP Regime in Turkey, Turkish Studies, volume 19 issue 5. Taylor & Francis.

Toktamis, K., David, I. (2018). Democratization Betrayed-Erdogan’s New Turkey, Mediterranean Quarterly, Special Issue: Critical Crossroads- Erdogan and Transformation of Turkey ed., Volume 29, Number 3. Duke University Press.

David, I., Toktamis, K. (2015). Everywhere Taksim: Sowing the Seeds for a New Turkey at Gezi, Amsterdam University Press.

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles and Book Chapters

  •  2024 “Laissez-Passer Laissez-Mourir: Earthquake 2023 and  Capitalism that Discards and Disassociates Citizens in Erdogan’s Turkey” in ELECTIONS AND EARTHQUAKES: QUO Vadis Turkey? ed by N. Christofis, pp.157-170 Transnational Press, London.
  • 2023  -in Greek- [“The Peace that was not: Friends and Foes during Oslo and Imrali talks 2005-2015” in The Kurds of Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to our Days, ed by Antonis Deriziotis, Murat Issi, Nikos Christofis, Publications of University Patras, Patra, Greece.] Η ειρήνη που δεν ήρθε: Φίλοι και εχθροί κατά τη διάρκεια των διαπραγματεύσεων του Όσλο και του Ιμραλί, 2005-2015″Οι Κούρδοι της Τουρκίας: Από την Οθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία Ιστορία έως τις μέρες μας (Αντώνης Δεριζιώτης, Μουράτ Ισσί, Νίκος Χριστοφής), Εκδόσεις Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών, Πάτρα
  •  2022 “Neither Peace nor Resolution: Friends and Foes during Oslo and Imrali talks 2005-2015” in The State of the Kurds in Erdogan’s New Turkey: Domestic and International Implications, ed. by Nikos Christofis, Routledge.

Toktamis, K. (2021) “Shifting Claim-Making, Shifting Trenches: The AKP’s Changing Self-Presentation” Turkish Studies. Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2021.1880901

Toktamis, K. and Isabel David (2021) “The Kurdish Freedom Movement and Gezi: Strategic Reluctance and Tactical Ambiguities” in Ecological Solidarity and the Kurdish Freedom Movement ed. by Stephen Hurt, Lexington Books / Rowman & Littlefield.

Toktamis, K (2019c) Now There is, Now There is Not: The Disappearing Silent Revolution of AKP as Re-entrenchment” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol 46, issue 5, pp.735-751, Taylor and Francis Group. DOI: 10.1080/13530194.2019.1634392

Toktamis, K. (2019b). “(Im)possibility of negotiating peace 2005-2015 peace/reconciliation talks between the Turkish government and Kurdish Politicians” in Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, Volume 29, Issue 2. Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2018.1497753

Toktamis, K. (2019a). “Yashar Khanum: The Woman for Whom the War Never Ended” in Intellectuals and the First World War ed by Tomasz Pudlocki and Kamil Ruszala Jagiellonian, University Press, Krakow, Poland and Columbia University Press, NY.

Toktamis, K., David, I. (2018a). “Introduction: Kurdish politics re-entrenched as AKP consolidates power” in Turkish Studies Special Issue Repression and Resistance:
Fragments of Kurdish Politics under the AKP Regime in Turkey, Volume 19, Issue, 16. Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2018.1508350.

Toktamis, K. (2018b). A Peace That Wasn’t: Friends Foes and Contentious (re-) Entrenchment of Kurdish Politics in Turkey, in Turkish Studies Special Issue Repression and Resistance: Fragments of Kurdish Politics under the AKP Regime in Turkey, volume 19 Issue 5. Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2018.1500139

Toktamis, K., David, I. (2018c). “Introduction: Democratization Betrayed-Erdogan’s New Turkey” in Mediterranean Quarterly, Special Issue: Critical Crossroads- Erdogan and Transformation of Turkey ed. by Kumru F. Toktamis and Isabel David, Volume 29, Number 3. Duke University Press.

Toktamis, K. (2015). “Evoking and Invoking Nationhood as Contentious
Democratisation” in Everywhere Taksim: Sowing the Seeds for a New Turkey at Gezi, Amsterdam University Press.

Toktamis, K. (2014). “Post-Qaddafi Libya and processes of democratization/de-democratization” in Democratic Governance Challenges in Developing Countries, ed. by G. Mudacumura and G. Morçöl, Springer.
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Toktamis, K. (2009). “This Part of the Globe is not Flat: The Paradox of the Turkish Relationship with Northern Iraq and the Dilemma of Kurdish Politics across Borders” in The Nation in the Global Era: Conflict and Transformation, ed. by Jerry Harris, Brill Publications.