Research Focus Areas

• Citizenship
• Statelessness and revocation of citizenship
• (Forced) migration
• (Human) rights
• Child rights
• Gender and safety/security
• Qualitative research and secondary traumatization

Short Biography

Yesim Mutlu received her PhD (2019) and MSc (2009) in Sociology from Middle East Technical University. While her MSc thesis, "Turkey's Experience of Forced Migration after 1980s and Social Integration: A Comparative Analysis of Diyarbakır and Istanbul", focused on the effects of the practice of conflict induced internal displacement on youngsters and women in Turkey; her PhD dissertation, "Disowning Citizens: Arbitrary Revocation of Citizenship and Statelessness in the Paternalist Turkish State", embarking on socio-historical approach,  explores, the practice of citizenship revocation during the Turkish Republican period in relation to identity construction, and perception of (dis)loyalty.

Her postdoc research, funded by The Scientific and Technological Research Council in Turkey (TUBITAK), at the Departmant of Social and Cultural Anthropology, examines the practice of deprivation of citizenship through the case of Turkish citizens living in Austria. This qualitative study particularly focuses on the needs, expectations as well as attitudes towards belonging, by taking socioeconomic status, age and gender variables into consideration.

Besides her academic studies, for more than fifteen years, she works for national and international organization as well as NGOs as a consultant/expert/researcher, on various subjects, mostly focusing on disadvantaged groups' access to/violation of rights.