Guest Researcher: Cihan Erdost

Cihan Erdost's background is in International Relations (IR), with a B.A degree in IR at Bilkent University in Ankara and a master’s degree in IR and European Affairs at CEU.

“My master’s thesis was on gender reading of ontological security at state level wherein I focused on masculine self-identity building in Syria. Currently, I am a 4th year PhD student in Political Science at the IR department at CEU. My PhD dissertation is on gendered (and queered) governance of dead bodies in Turkey’s counter-insurgency operations against PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party),” said Cihan Erdost.

“Besides my dissertation, I’m currently working on a paper that presents a post-colonial reading of Anglo-American media’s representation of the ‘Rojava Revolution’, which is evolving from a conference paper I presented in Revolution and Resistance in World Politics conference at London School of Economics. I also taught ‘Introduction to Political Science and IR’ courses under the OLIve Program at CEU, which targets refugees and asylum seekers who wish to continue their higher education, until the program was shut down by the Hungarian government.”

Cihan Erdost’s main area of expertise is Critical Security Studies (CSS) and Feminist Security Studies.

“My expertise within CSS resides in post-structuralist approaches to security, death studies, and queer IR. Methodologically, I am most familiar with Critical Discourse Analysis, and interpretive methods more broadly,” said Cihan Erdost.

Currently, he is working on the theoretical/analytical framework chapter of his dissertation, and plan to finish this chapter during his time at the School of Global Studies. He will also aim to finish the first empirical chapter where he presents a gendered analysis of dead body management.

“Therefore, I’m looking forward to co-operating with my supervisor Maria Stern. I am planning to turn the empirical chapter into an article and hoping to co-author. In addition to my dissertation, I’m hoping to collaborate with other staff members to finish my article on discourse analysis of the Anglo-American representation of the Rojava Revolution,” said Cihan Erdost.