Research Topic:
Landscapes of dispossession: Policing, Property and Labour in Istanbul
Supervisors:
Dr. Ayça Çubukçu (Department of Sociology and LSE Human Rights) and Dr Suzi Hall (Department of Sociology)
Research Interests:
Migration; Postcolonial studies; Critical Race Theory; Human Rights; Urban studies; Political economy; Cultural studies; Ethnography
My Research:
My thesis is an ethnographic account of a few Syrian friends living in Istanbul. From their gaze I situate Istanbul within a loose carceral landscape, at once grounded within the city streets and situated within a wider geographical landscape. I foreground three frames in the city – policing, property and labour – and discuss each as sets of practices and relations which are entangled in wider geographical and temporal practices. My focus is on the entanglements, multiplicities and frictions of power but I’m also inspired by work on urban sociology and the poetics of the city.
Academic Publications
Helen Mackreath (2023) Book review: "Border Abolitionism: Migrants’ containment and the genealogies of struggles and rescue by Martina Tazzioli", in Antipode Online
Helen Mackreath (2022) Book Review: "Remaindered Life by Neferti X. M. Tadiar", in LSE Review of Books
Helen Mackreath (2021) Book Review: "Decay by Ghassan Hage (ed.)", in LSE Review of Books
Helen Mackreath (2021) Book Review: "The Coloniaity of Asylum: Mobility, Autonomy and Solidarity in the Wake of Europe’s Refugee Crisis by Fiorenza Picozza" in LSE Review of Books
Helen Mackreath (2019) Book Review: "Here to Stay, Here to Fight: A ‘Race Today’ Anthology. Paul Field, Robin Bunce, Leila Hassan and Margaret Peacock (eds)", in LSE Review of Books
Selected Interviews
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)
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