ALCITfem - Team
Activism And Its Moral and Cultural Foundation: Alternative Citizenship and Women’s Roles in Kurdistan and the Diaspora (ALCITfem) is an interdisciplinary research programme that is rooted in literary studies, cultural anthropology, gender studies and sociology. It connects Humanities with Social Sciences through the cooperation of the following institutes: the Section of Kurdish Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies (Faculty of Philology) of the Jagiellonian University (JU, Kraków), the Centre for Gender Research (STK, Senter for Tverrfaglig Kjonnsforskning) at the University of Oslo (UiO), the Centre for the Advanced Study of Population and Religion (CASPAR) at Cracow University of Economics (CUE), the Fafo, Institute of Labour and Social Research in Oslo and the Asia and Pacific Museum (Warsaw). Here you can read more about the team.
Joanna Bocheńska
Dr hab. Joanna Bocheńska, is the researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies (Department of Iranian Studies) of the Jagiellonian University, Poland, and director of the Section of Kurdish Studies. From 2013 to 2018, she headed the project, How to make a voice audible? Continuity and change of Kurdish culture and social reality in postcolonial perspectives. Its main result, the book entitled Rediscovering Kurdistan’s Cultures and Identities: The Call of The Cricket has been published in 2018. Her main interests include ethics, heritage, Kurdish classical and modern literature, Middle Eastern cinema and art.
Wendelmoet Hamelink
Dr Wendelmoet Hamelink is a researcher at the Centre for Gender Research (STK) of Oslo University where she works on the project ALCITfem and is also involved in teaching. She has an MA and PhD in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology from Leiden University, the Netherlands. After her PhD she received a grant from the Max Weber foundation for research on cultural memories of Armenians originating from eastern Turkey, followed by a Marie Sklodowska Curie fellowship with which she carried out the project IMEX, Images in Exile.
Karol Kaczorowski
Dr Karol Kaczorowski works at the Center for Advanced Studies of Population and Religion (CASPAR) and at the Department of International Relations at the Cracow University of Economics (Poland). From 2013 to 2018, he was a co-researcher in the project, How to make a voice audible? Continuity and change of Kurdish culture and social reality in postcolonial perspectives. Author of works in the fields of: sociology, cultural anthropology, anthropology of religion and policy. Currently transnational Kurdish families are the topic of his research.
Dobrosława Wiktor-Mach
Dr Dobrosława Wiktor-Mach works at the Center for Advanced Studies of Population and Religion (CASPAR) and at the Department of International Relations at the University of Economics in Cracow (Poland). Her field research on Islamic movements resulted in a book Religious Revival and Secularism in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan (2017, De Gruyter). Currently she studies environmental activism in Turkey and socio-cultural aspects of migration in Poland and Ukraine.
Nerina Weiss
Dr Nerina Weiss is senior researcher at Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Studies. Much of her academic and applied research has focused on citizen-state relations, which she has explored through a focus on political violence and migration, the mobilization to the wars in Turkey, Syria and Irak, as well as torture and trauma. Regionally she has worked in the Mediterranean and Middle East, with extensive fieldwork experience from Cyprus and Eastern Turkey, as well as from Denmark, Norway and Austria. She is the co-editor of Violence Expressed: An Anthropological Perspective (2012 Routledge).
Hayal Hanoglu
Dr Hayal Hanoglu holds a PhD in Migration Studies from the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR) at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Her PhD thesis focused on the diasporic transformation of migrant religions and religious communities through the socio-spatial dynamics of migrant Alevism in the UK. Her research interests mainly include migration, diaspora, religion and gender in Alevi and Kurdish contexts. Hayal Hanoglu became the member of our project in September 2022.
Kaziwa Dylan
Dr. Kaziwa Salih: Cultural-Sociologist, Genocide Scholar, holds a Ph.D. (2020) from Queen’s University, Canada, where she specialized in cultural-sociology of violence/ Kurdish genocides in Iraq. She is a multiple award-winning author of over 10 fiction and non-fiction books, and has written many articles and academic papers. She founded and was editor-in-chief of two Kurdish journals, Nvar and Newekar. Her main interests include Kurdish genocide, culture, gender and women issues, Space and Citizenship, Migration and Displacement, Yezidism and Yazidi Affairs.
Marcin Skupiński
Marcin Skupiński is a PhD student at University of Warsaw (Doctoral School of Humanities). He is graduate of the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw. His research interests concentrate on ecological and political anthropology with special focus on huma-environment relations and counter-hegemonic forms of social organisation. Currently he investigates political ecology of Kurdish movements in the context of environmental problems of middle east. Before enrolment at the doctoral school and joining AlcitFem project he conducted long term fieldwork in the Ukraine. He is also active outside university in various research and educational projects concerning topics like environment protection and gender equality.
Hüseyin Keskin
Hüseyin Keskin is MA student in the Institute of Oriental Studies (Department of Iranian Studies) at the Jagiellonian University, Poland. His main interests include oral tradition, heritage, activism, and indigenous studies.
Andrew Bush
Andrew Bush is an anthropologist who studies law, gender, and literature as they relate to Islamic traditions in Iraqi Kurdistan. Before joining AltCitFem, he was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School and previously taught at New York University Abu Dhabi for several years. He is the author of several articles and the book Between Muslims: Religious Difference in Iraqi Kurdistan (Stanford 2020). Andrew Bush was the member of our project until July 2022.