About
Research Topic:
Landscapes of dispossession: Policing, Property and Labour in Istanbul
Supervisors:
Dr. Ayça Çubukçu (Department of Sociology and LSE Human Rights) and Professor Suzi Hall (Department of Sociology)
Research
Research Interests:
Migration; Postcolonial studies; Critical Race Theory; Human Rights; Urban studies; Political economy; Cultural studies; Ethnography
My Research:
Helen Mackreath is an interdisciplinary scholar working across the fields of critical race theory, urban studies, and postcolonial studies in relation to migration in Istanbul.
Her thesis is an ethnographic account of a few Syrian friends living in Istanbul. From their gaze, she situates Istanbul within a loose carceral landscape, at once grounded within the city streets and situated within a wider geographical landscape. She foregrounds three frames in the city – policing, property and labour – and discusses each as sets of practices and relations which are entangled in wider geographical and temporal practices. Drawing on theories of political belonging, urban space, black and feminist geography, and critical race theory, her focus is on the entanglements, multiplicities and frictions of power, but she is also inspired by the poetics of the city.
As a scholar committed to collaboration and public engagement, she is currently working with istos publishing house in Istanbul on a critical inquiry into (anti)racism in Turkey, and on a book about James Baldwin’s decade in Istanbul.
Publications
No results found
Engagement and impact
Selected public writing
Helen Mackreath (2023) Incarceration: On Sevgi Soysal’s Dawn, K24
Helen Mackreath (2022) Who is a Revolutionary Subject? The White Review
Helen Mackreath (2022) The Language of the Misfit: On Oğuz Atay’s "The Disconnected", LA Review of Books
Helen Mackreath (2021) The intimate boundaries of Istanbul, MAP Magazine
Helen Mackreath (2020) Threshold of Life: The death of Nadira Kadirova, LA Review of Books
Helen Mackreath (2020) The Intimacies of Violence: Sema Kaygusuz’s Every Fire You Tend, LA Review of Books
Helen Mackreath (2019) Racism and Syrians in Turkey: The Political Economy of Discrimination, Jadaliyya
Selected Interviews
Racism in Turkey: Context, Questions and Stakes, Interview with Helen Mackreath, K24, 6 February 2025
Foundations of Solidarity: A Conversation with Anat Matar, LA Review of Books (February 2023)
Intersections of Anti-Migrant Racism and Misogyny in Turkey: An Interview with Feminist Activist Irem Kayıkçı, Jadaliyya (August 2022)
Foundations of Solidarity: A Conversation with Yasmin El-Rifae, LA Review of Books (June 2022)
Conversation with Aaron Benanav: Automation and the Future of Work, Kıraathane (June 2022)
Conversation with Ben Ehrenreich: Diaries of Hope: Life and Death in Palestine, Kıraathane (May 2022)
Conversation with Philippe Sands: Crimes Against Humanity - Writing and Judging, Kıraathane (April 2022)
Foundations of Solidarity: A Conversation with Zeina Maasri, LA Review of Books (November 2021)
Foundations of Solidarity: A Conversation with Zeynep Gambetti, LA Review of Books (July 2021)