Lecturer Profiles:
https://www.giga-hamburg.de/en/the-giga/team/dahbi-khalil
https://giga-hamburg.academia.edu/KhalilDahbi
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Date: Thursday, July 24, 2025
Time: 10:30 - 11:45
Place: Room 406, Research & Lecture Building, TUFS
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Inquiries: gdc@tufs.ac.jp
]]>Project members, Yasuyuki Matsunaga, Mostafa Khalili, and Sohrab Ahmadian will present and discuss some of the findings from their recent fieldwork in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Date: Friday, July 18, 2025
Time: 16:30 - 18:30
Location: Room 301, ILCAA
(Building #6 on this campus map)
Language: English
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This event is co-sponsored by the JFE 21st Century Foundation Grant Research "The Geopolitical Location and Socio-Religious Changes in Southern Kurdistan" and the Interdisciplinary Research Unit for Global Democratic Change (GDC), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Inquiries: gdc@tufs.ac.jp
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Panelists:
Roschanack Shaery-Yazdi (Associate Professor, University of Antwerp / Visiting Scholar at TUFS)
Makiko Nambu (Adjunct Research Fellow, Institute of Global Studies, TUFS)
Discussant:
Yasuyuki Matsunaga (Professor, Institute of Global Studies, TUFS)
Chair:
Keiko Sakai (Professor, Chiba University)
]]> Date:Saturday, June 28, 2025
Place:
Room 226, Research-Lecture Building (Building #9 in this campus map), Tokyo Univ. of Foreign Studies (and online)
Time:
17:30 to 19:00
(Room 226 will be opened at 17:00)
Language:
English
The Program
Decolonising Political Analysis on the Middle East: Documenting Human Stories as Testimonies (Roschanack Shaery-Yazdi)
Decolonial Perspective on Palestine and Japan's Complicity in the Ongoing Genocide (Makiko Nambu)
Discussions (Yasuyuki Matsunaga)
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This event is organized by Interdisciplinary Research Unit for Global Democratic Change, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and co-sponsored by Middle East Thursday Forum and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) 24H00136: Sense of Nation and Knowledge Production among the migrant communities from the Middle East (Principal Investigator: Keiko Sakai, Chiba University). For inquiries, please contact: gdc@tufs.ac.jp
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To register for online (webinar) participation:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XZCqWD2cQ5m2TmOLtqM_Yw
]]>Non-state Armed Actors in the Middle East: Their Transnational Networks and Conflict Dynamics
Principal Investigator: Yasuyuki Matsunaga (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
Co-Investigators: Kota Suechika (Ritsumeikan University), Dai Yamao (Kyushu University)
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The presenter profile:
https://www.okan.edu.tr/en/cv/hasan-deniz-peksen/
Time: 15:00-16:30, Thursday, May 8, 2025.
Language: English
Type: Hybrid (Face-to-face and Zoom).
To get the meeting Zoom link, please contact Professor Matsunaga at matsunaga@tufs.ac.jp.
The meeting is co-hosted by the GDC and the Kakenhi Kiban B Project "Non-State Armed Actors in the Middle East: Their Transnational Networks and Impacts on Conflict Dynamics (AY2025-AY2028).
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Matsunaga, Yasuyuki. "The Myth of Vertical Integration in Regional Conflict: Iran and the "Axis of Resistance"." In Gaza Nakba 2023-2024: Background, Context, Consequences, pp. 123-140. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore, 2025.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-97-4868-6_8
Download preprint:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5130113
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]]> Published in January 2025 as Chapter 8 () ofGaza Nakba 2023-2024:
Background, Context, Consequences
https://link.springer.com/book/9789819748679
Project member, Mashuq Kurt of the Royal Holloway, University of London, will present his recent research on "Radical Habitus and Political Violence in the Middle East: A Case Study of Youth Radicalisation across Turkish-Syrian Border Zones."
Saturday, November 2, 2024
Program
17:00 Start
17:10 Presentation by M. Mashuq Kurt (the Royal Holloway, University of London)
"Radical Habitus and Political Violence in the Middle East: A Case Study of Youth Radicalisation across Turkish-Syrian Border Zones"
18:50 Discussion
19:30 Close
Location: Room 301, ILCAA
(Building #6 in this campus map)
Language: English
To participate, please contact Prof. Matsuanga in advance at matsunaga@tufs.ac.jp
Co-Sponsor
This event is co-sponsored by the Kyoto University Institute for the Future of Huan Society Project "Deconstructing the Production of Knowledge on the Kurds and Kurdistan" (Project Leader: Mostafa Khalili).
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The Guest Discussant:
Andreas Wimmer (Columbia University)
16:00 Presentation (Yasuyuki Matsunaga and Sohrab Ahmadian, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies) "The Transformation of Religiosity in Twentieth-Century Ouramanat: A Boundary Dynamics Approach"
16:40 Comment (Andreas Wimmer, Columbia University)
17:00 Presentation (Mostafa Khalili, Kyoto University) "Contentious Boundary-work in Kurdistan: The Tri-Border Region of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey"
17:40 Comment (Andreas Wimmer, Columbia University)
18:00-19:00 General Discussion
Location: Room 301, ILCAA
Language: English
To participate, please contact Prof. Matsuanga in advance at matsunaga@tufs.ac.jp
This event is supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(A) "Sense of Nation and Knowledge Production among the migrant communities from the Middle East" (Principal Investigator: Keiko SAKAI, Chiba University, Project number: 24H00136).
The Project Kick-Off Meeting
Date & Time: Tuesday, July 16, 2024, 4:00 pm-5:30 pm
Venue: Room 301, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, TUFS (Google Map)
Program:
4:00 Introduction of the project (Yasuyuki Matsunaga)
"Critical Introduction to Analytical Approaches to Boundary Dynamics"
4:30 Presentation (Mostafa Khalili)
"Contentious Borderwork in Kurdistan: Dynamics of Cross-Border Kurdish Identity in the Tri-Border Region of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey"
5:00 Discussion
5:30 Closing
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For inquiries, please contact: matsunaga锛爐ufs.ac.jp
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Speaker profile:
Dr. Bilge YABANCI
A Global Marie Curie fellow at Ca' Foscari University of Venice (Italy)
Publications [url]
Curriculum Vitae [url]
Website: https://unive.academia.edu/BilgeYabanci
]]> A GDC Research SeminarThe Role of Civil Society in Autocratization: Turkey's Youth, Women's and Diaspora Organizations
Bilge Yabanci, PhD
Abstract
How does autocratization led by elected governments (also called democratic backsliding) alter state-society relations? What is the role of civil society in autocratization? The thriving literature on autocratization focuses on how power-abusing incumbents circumvent checks and balances, corrupt the electoral competition, and monopolize formal institutions in several countries. Meanwhile, civil society is considered either a victim of repressive measures or a venue of democratic resistance. This talk investigates an under-researched path to autocratization by placing civil society at the centre. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographical fieldwork (2017-2022) with youth and women's organizations in Turkey and Turkish diaspora organizations in four European countries, the talk raises two arguments. First, the liberal-normative paradigm harnessing civil society to pluralism, participation and free association is inadequate in examining the relations between the state and society. Civil society can bring the authoritarian state to citizens' daily lives through indoctrination, politicized leisure, and clientelism. A theorization of civil society as an intermediary that embodies, produces and deepens autocratization reveals how and why autocratization has taken root in many countries and is supported by citizens. Second, dominant assumptions about the state as a set of formal institutions and defined territory do not fully capture the dynamics of autocratization. The state is not a unitary entity that elected incumbents capture and control for and by themselves. It is constructed through a broad elite coalition that involves non-state actors. Hence, the state should be disaggregated into tangible practitioners and techniques of power to understand the dynamics of autocratization better.
Dear all,