“IR and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women”
Date and Time: Monday, 25 November, 12:30-13:30
Venue: A-130
This panel will overview the history of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which has its roots in Latin America, and describe feminist approaches to international violence. Feminist understandings of violence go beyond direct violence and a war/peace binary. A focus on Türkiye and its international obligations under the UN and EU (including failures and loopholes) alongside an examination of femicides in Türkiye (including statistical data from the most recent national survey) and the localized struggles around femicides from the women’s movement will be discussed. The panel aims to create interest in violence against women as a matter of life and death and as critical to IR.
Speakers: Tuğba Bayar (Bilkent University, International Relations), Burcu Özdemir-Sarıgil (Global Citizenship, Ted University) and Crystal Whetstone (Bilkent University, International Relations)
Short biographies:
Burcu Özdemir-Sarıgil received her Ph.D. in 2018 from the Department of International Relations, Middle East Technical University. She also studied at the University of Cologne and the European University Institute as a visiting PhD student. Between 2004 and 2014, she worked as a research and project assistant at the Center for European Studies, METU. Between 2018 and 2024, she was a part-time instructor and post-doctoral researcher at Bilkent University.
Currently, she is a part-time faculty member at TED University, an active and founding member of the Women, Peace, and Security Working Group in Turkey, and a member of the Women in Foreign Policy Initiative. She has been involved in various research projects funded by TÜBİTAK, EU Jean Monnet, EU IPA, and the British Academy. Her main research interests include EU politics, diffusion of international norms, women’s human rights, gender in foreign policy, violence against women, and new social movements. Her research has been published in such journals as South European Society and Politics, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, and edited volumes of Routledge, Palgrave, Orion, and Bilgi University Publications.
Dr. Tuğba Bayar, at the Department of International Relations, conducts research on international regimes, international law and international human rights. Regionally she is specialized on the Middle East, particularly Iran’s foreign affairs. She received research grants from various national and international institutions, such as TÜBİTAK and the European Commission. Her works are published in the journals “Turkish Studies” and “Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.” Her current work focuses on the EU’s normative power vis-à-vis democratically backsliding countries. Dr. Bayar is presently leading a Jean Monnet Module Project on the international and European protection of human rights.
Crystal Whetstone is an Assistant Professor at Bilkent University’s Department of International Relations. Her research specializes in gender, peace, violence and security with a focus on motherhood. She has examined peaceful motherhood movements in the global South and recently turned to violent motherhood.