Dr Umut Erel

RCUK Academic Fellowship

Sociology

Profile

RCUK Academic Fellow - Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance and Sociology Department

Qualifications

MA Gender and Ethnic Studies, Greenwich University
PhD Cultural Studies, Nottingham Trent University

Professional affiliations

British Sociological Association

Course Development and Teaching Commitments

I have been a course team member on DD201 in 2007/8 and am currently co-supervising (with Engin Isin) Hilal Alkan Zeybek’s PhD on ‘Enacting Citizenship: Practices of Intimacy and Gift-Giving in Turkey and (with Jef Huysmans) Khaled Alkhatib’s PhD on ‘Islamization and Integration - Muslim Communities in Berlin and London’.

Research Interests

My research interests are in migration, ethnicity, gender and class, culture and representation empirically and theoretically. I have explored issues of intersectionality, the social construction of skill and notions of belonging in recent research projects (e.g. on Refugee Women in London’s voluntary sector and on migration and cohesion in the context of the East of England). I am interested in how these issues play out in practices of citizenship, differentiated along gender and ethnic lines. My monograph on ‘Migrant Women Transforming Citizenship (Ashgate 2009) addresses these issues through the lens of the life-stories of migrant women from Turkey in Britain and Germany. I have just completed a pilot study on migrant women’s mothering practices as citizenship practices in their own right and with respect to shaping their children’s ethnic, cultural, political identities and modes of citizenship.

Recent Publications

2009: Migrant Women Transforming Citizenship. Aldershot: Ashgate

2007: Constructing Meaningful Lives: Biographical Methods in Research on Migrant Women, Sociological Research Online, Volume 12, Issue 4 (reprinted in: Reprinted in: Life Story Research, edited by Barbara Harrison, Sage: 2008.

2007: Transnationale Migration, Intime Beziehungen und BürgerInnenrechte. In: Hartmann, Jutta / Klesse, Christian / Wagenknecht, Peter / Fritzsche, Bettina / Hackmann, Kristina (eds.) Eine Einführung Heteronormativität. Empirische Studien zu Heterosexualität als gesellschaftlichem Machtverhältnis. Vs Verlag

2007: with Jinthana Haritaworn, Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Christian Klesse: Intersektionalität oder Simultaneität?! – Zur Verschränkung und Gleichzeitigkeit mehrfacher Machtverhältnisse in: Hartmann, Jutta / Klesse, Christian / Wagenknecht, Peter / Fritzsche, Bettina / Hackmann, Kristina (eds.) Eine Einführung Heteronormativität. Empirische Studien zu Heterosexualität als gesellschaftlichem Machtverhältnis. Vs Verlag

2007: Auto/biografische Wissensproduktionen von Migrantinnen, in: Kien Nghi Ha, Nicola Lauré al-Samarai, Sheila Mysorekar (Eds.) re/visionen. Postkoloniale Perspektiven von People of Color auf Rassismus, Kulturpolitik und Widerstand in Deutschland

2008: with Jin Haritaworn, Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Christian Klesse: On the Depoliticisation of Intersectionality Talk. Conceptualising Multiple Oppressions in Critical Sexuality Studies. In: Kuntsman, Adi, Miyake, Esperanza (eds.) Out of Place. Raw Nerves Publishers.

2008: Hickman, Crowley and Mai with Erel, U. and Institute for Conflict Resoloution: Rhythms and Realities of Everyday life. Improving our Understanding of Migration and Social Cohesion in the UK.

2005: with Frances Tomlinson: Women refugees - from volunteers to employees: a research project on paid and unpaid work in the voluntary sector and volunteering as a pathway into employment.

A repository of research publications and other research outputs can be viewed at The Open University's Open Research Online.