Our Research Assistants and Students Presented Their Work at the AAA 2025 Annual Meeting in the United States

Members of the Ibn Haldun University Department of Sociology participated in the American Anthropological Association (AAA) 2025 Annual Meeting—one of the world’s leading anthropology gatherings—held between 19–23 November under this year’s theme, “Ghosts.” Under the coordination of Dr. Nursem Keskin Aksay from Marmara University Department of Sociology, data obtained from the projects “Representation of Violence Against Women in the Media and Audience Awareness: A Study on Local TV Series” and “Women’s Labor in Private and Public Spheres in Türkiye,” conducted in collaboration with KADEM and Ethiora, were presented and discussed across three different panels. Our academics and students shared the findings of their comprehensive field research on women’s labor, media, and gender in Türkiye with the international academic community.

Representing our university at the meeting were Research Assistants from the Department of Sociology, Nüseybe Karagöz and Yunus Yeşil; PhD candidates Nesibe Demir and Betül Tozlu; and master’s student İrem Üstün. Our faculty members and students drew significant attention with their presentations examining Türkiye’s sociological dynamics, the layered structure of women’s labor, representations of masculinity in popular culture, and the perception of television and streaming series in Türkiye.

The panels and their details are as follows:

“Reconceptualizing Women's Labor: The Intersection of Material, Spiritual, Religious and Cultural Layers”

In the first panel, presentations based on focus group interviews, in-depth interviews, and participant observations conducted in 12 different cities in Türkiye emphasized that women’s labor is not merely a market-oriented material value, but also carries spiritual, emotional, and cultural dimensions. In this panel:

• Nesibe Demir presented “Generational Shifts in Labor & Gender Roles,”
• Betül Tozlu presented “Fitrah: The Burden of Better Sex.”

“Negotiating Masculinities: The Rationality–Religiosity Dichotomy in Turkish TV Series”

In the second panel, discussions focused on how secular and religious discourses in Türkiye shape the construction of male characters, and how the rationality–religiosity dichotomy influences representations of masculinity. In this panel:

• Nesibe Demir presented “Performing Masculinity Across ‘Secular’ and ‘Religious’ Contexts: Kızıl Goncalar,”
• Nüseybe Karagöz presented “Reframing Hegemonic Masculinity through Spirituality in Gönül Dağı,”
• İrem Üstün presented “Shifting Masculinities Within Ages: Different Masculinity Representations in Kızıl Goncalar.”

“Questioning Everyday Consumerism of Popular Series and Their Reflections on Socio-Cultural Values in Türkiye”

In the third panel, the focus was on the most-watched television and digital platform series of the 2023–2024 season, particularly why audiences continue to consume violence-centered productions even when these works contradict their own cultural and religious values. In this panel:

• Nesibe Demir presented “Pleasure, Ambivalence, and Everyday Escapes: Why Turkish Audiences Keep Watching,”
• Betül Tozlu presented “Into Our Houses: Consumption of Violence as a Form of Violence,”
• Yunus Yeşil presented “From Traditional to Modern: How Violence Against Women Is Constructed Through Corrupted Family Relations.” 

We congratulate our faculty members and students for successfully representing our university and our country on an international academic platform and for their valuable contributions to the scholarly literature. We wish them continued success.