Özlem Altan

Özlem Altan-Olcay has received her PhD in political science at New York University and is currently professor in the Department of International Relations at Koç University. Her research interests include citizenship studies, and gender and development, and gender and discourses of culture, belonging and work. Her articles have been published in the journals International Political Sociology (2023); Gender, Work & Organization (2023), Globalizations (2023), Third World Quarterly (2022); International Feminist Journal of Politics (2022); Development and Change (2020); Women’s Studies International Forum (2019); Gender, Place & Culture (2017); Social Politics (2017); Sociology (2016); Ethnic and Racial Studies (2016); Social Politics (2016); Geoforum (2015); Feminist Economics (2014); British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (2012); Citizenship Studies (2012); New Perspectives on Turkey (2011); National Identities (2009), Middle Eastern Studies (2008) in addition to chapters in numerous edited books and others in venues intended for wider audiences. Her co-authored book The American Passport in Turkey: Identity and Belonging in the Age of Global Empire has received the American Sociological Association’s Global and Transnational Sociology Section Best Book by an International Scholar Award in 2021. Dr. Altan-Olcay is also among the recipients of 2014 Science Academy’s Young Scientist Award and the College of Administrative Sciences and Economics Outstanding Award in 2022. Her research has been supported by the International Center for Advanced Studies at NYU, the UN Population Council, the Middle East Research Competition, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, and the EU Horizon 2020 Marie Curie Individual Fellowship. Dr. Altan-Olcay was an editor at the journal Gender, Place and Culture between 2018 and 2023 and is currently an associate editor at Citizenship Studies.

Recent and Select Publications

2023-early view. Collective Discussion: Movement and Carceral Spatiality in the Pandemic (with R. Shindo, E. Balta, H. von Houtum, A. van Uden, P.K. Rajaram, M. Coward, S. Pellander, J. Huysmans). International Political Sociology.

2023-early view. Care in Times of Pandemic: Rethinking Meanings of Work in the University (with S. Bergeron). Gender, Work & Organization.

2022. Expertise at the Intersection of Technicality and Ambiguity: International Governance of Gender and Development. Third World Quarterly. 43(1): 206-224.

2022. Making and Unmaking Culture: Gender Experts, Faith and the International Governance of Gender. International Feminist Journal of Politics. 24(2): 286-309.

2020. Politics of Engagement: Gender Expertise and International Governance. Development and Change. 51(5): 1271-1295.

Main sub-Fields: Political Sociology Gender Studies

Research Interests

Gender Studies

Gender and Development

Citizenship Studies

Everyday Politics of Inequality