Mete Ulutas

My research focuses on the history of political incarceration from the late Ottoman Empire to the early Republican Turkey. I am particularly interested in exploring the formation and reformation of prison spaces and cultures through the conflict between the state, the prison population, and their communities across the empire and the republic. I consider prison space to be a part of the wider public space, albeit being segregated through prison walls, and a space of contestation between the state and the political prisoners, shaping the political subjectivities and publics. I aim to trace the different forms labor takes within and beyond prisons through different techniques of incarceration and practices of resistance. Before joining the Penn State History Department, I conducted an ethnographic study on political prisoners associated with the Kurdish Movement in Turkey during the state of emergency and its immediate aftermath. The anthropological training I received at the Sociology Department in Boğaziçi University continues to inform and be part of my current historical and ethnographical works.

Research Interests:

Political Violence, Carcerality, Public Spaces, Social Movements, Affect, Emotions, Labor, Political Philosophy, Ottoman Empire, Turkey, the United States