Erol Saglam

Erol Saglam

Research Topic
Tackling Paranoia and Violence at Once: How to Address Everyday Authoritarianization, Conspiracy Theories, and Societal Violence in Contemporary Turkey

Dr Erol Saglam is a social anthropologist working on masculinities, bureaucracies, statecraft, and societal violence as well as on collective memory and intangible cultural heritage. After his undergraduate and MA studies in political science at Bogazici University in Istanbul, he completed his doctoral research at Birkbeck, University of London in 2017. After his PhD, Dr Saglam worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Stockholm University and, as of 2021, Freie Universität Berlin. He is currently a lecturer at Istanbul Medeniyet University as of 2020 and a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge.

Dr Saglam’s work at Columbia Global Centers | Amman explores the intersections of the circulation of conspiracy theories and the worrying prevalence of societal violence against political dissidents, minorities, and foreigners. Drawing on the findings of ethnographic research and focus groups, the research is to generate insights into potential strategies to curb the spread of conspiracy theories and, by doing that, to de-escalate nationalist/xenophobic paranoia and violence.

 

Selected Publications:

  • Saglam, Erol. “Bureaucracies under authoritarian pressure: destabilizations, politicization, and bureaucratic subjectivities in contemporary Turkey.” International Journal of Law in Context. (forthcoming in 2022).
  • Saglam, Erol. “Taking the matter into your own hands: ethnographic insights into societal violence and the reconfigurations of the state in contemporary Turkey.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 21.2 (2021): 213-230.
  • Saglam, Erol. “Darkness unbound: insights into ethnographic rapport and ethics from an anthropological research with violent nationalists.” Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 146 (2021): 129-154.
  • Saglam, Erol. “Intimate and yet Alienated. Rethinking Homeland through Reworkings of Greek Heritage in Contemporary Trabzon, Turkey.” Études arméniennes contemporaines 13 (2021): 105-129.
  • Saglam, Erol. “What to do with conspiracy theories? Insights from contemporary Turkey.” Anthropology Today 36.5 (2020): 18-21.
  • Saglam, Erol. “Bridging the social with what unfolds in the psyche: The psychosocial in ethnographic research.” New voices in psychosocial studies. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 123-139.
  • Saglam, Erol. “Aestheticised rituals and (non-) engagement with norms in contemporary Turkey: A contribution to discussions on piety and ethics.” Anthropology of the Middle East 13.1 (2018): 8-23.