Following the appointment of Melih Bulu as rector of Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, protests have erupted on campus. Bediz Yılmaz sheds light on the ongoing fight for academic freedom in which the current events represent a decisive moment.
received her PhD degree from the French Institute of Urban Studies (University of Paris VIII) with a dissertation on the social exclusion of forced migrants in a slum neighbourhood of Istanbul. Her research interests include migration, urban/rural poverty, spatial segregation, social exclusion, gender and social policies. After working as Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Administration at Mersin University for more than 10 years, she has been dismissed for having signed the Peace Petition (January 2016) and between February 2017-October 2018 she was Philipp Schwartz Fellow in the Institute of Migration Research and Intercultural Studies, University of Osnabrück. Since then she lives in Mersin, practices farming and continues academic work as independent researcher. She is also the coordinator of the Online Encyclopedia of Turkey project entitled “100 Years in 100 Objects”.
