Welcome! Bienvenu.e.s!

I am a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the Université de Montréal writing my dissertation. My primary research interests lie at the intersection of language, religion, belonging, ethnicity, Québec studies, and nationalism(s). In my dissertation, I sought to understand immigrant belonging at the intersection of language and religion. I examined how societal particularities of Montréal and Toronto embedded in the processes of negotiating the difference and created a complex relation between language and religion. I further looked at how relations between immigrants and the majority groups and inter and intra-ethnic relations formed and transformed in these processes. The stories I relate in my thesis highlight the centrality of language and religion in shaping group identity, and the multifaceted patterns of inclusion and exclusion experienced by the interview participants. My analysis of the relation between language and religion made it possible to make sense of the continuing salience of religion in the “post-secular” age in Canada, specifically, how cultural religion emerged as an important determinant of immigrant boundary making in the communities I interviewed, especially in Québec.

I earned my undergraduate degree from the Middle East Technical University, with a major in Sociology. After graduation, I was awarded a scholarship to pursue my M.A. studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France. My M.A. research focused on forced migration, collective memory, and urban politics in a neighborhood of Istanbul, Turkey. I also have a graduate study without a degree in Modern Turkish History from the Boğaziçi University where I was able to develop a particular interest in the late Ottoman period and early modern Turkish history. Although the majority of my current work is on Canada, I maintain an interest in late Ottoman history, modern Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa.