Socioeconomic and cultural dynamics of resilience

A study of Inuit livelihoods, social networks, and well-being

Subsistence practices are central to the livelihoods, sociocultural life, and well-being of many rural communities in the Arctic and beyond. However, socioeconomic and environmental change challenge their continuity and adaptation. This project examines the factors that shape resilience and well-being in Inuit communities in Canada with subsistence-based mixed economies. It investigates how livelihood strategies, social networks, and cultural beliefs and practices interact to influence cultural stability and change, and how this in turn affects resilience and well-being. Using a mixed-methods design, the project integrates longitudinal survey data with ethnographic fieldwork and combines qualitative and quantitative methodologies rooted in social network analysis, econometrics, cognitive anthropology, and ethnography. Through a community-based participatory approach, the project seeks to provide actionable insights relevant to local needs. Theoretically, the project contributes to understanding the economic conditions and cultural dynamics that shape resilience and well-being in populations experiencing socioeconomic and environmental change.

Risky Areas’ of Diyarbakir: Normalization of the use of counterinsurgency strategies in urban restructuring

Tas’ doctoral project, “‘Risky Areas’ of Diyarbakir: Normalization of the use of counterinsurgency strategies in urban restructuring,” is an extension of her master thesis, which examines the normalization and generalization of the counterinsurgency strategies in urban policies in other parts of Diyarbakir. With her doctoral project, Tas was awarded the sowi:docs Fellowship in 2022. Her comparative ethnographic project hypothesizes that urban destruction, forceful displacement, dispossession, and urban redevelopment as counterinsurgency strategies, which were developed and employed in the context of the exceptional urban warfare in Sur, are turning into common practices by the Turkish state to subjugate the low-income Kurdish population living in clustered spaces that are deemed dangerous – “risky” – for the state.