Between Care and Violence: Istanbul’s Street Dogs

MİNE YILDIRIM, Dr.

The New School for Social Research, NY Istanbul Planning Agency

5 January 2021, Tuesday, 20.00

Ph.D. Candidate, Politics, at The New School for Social Research, New York. In her dissertation entitled, “Between Care and Violence: Istanbul’s Street Dogs”, Yıldırım investigates the intertwined relations that have long encompassed the dogs’ fragile but resilient bodies on the streets of Istanbul. Her research shed light on the governmental, legal, and symbolic orders of dominance and affection, coexistence and isolation, protection, and killing the animal bodies. In light of various practices, spaces, designs that have shaped the use, control, and governance of canine bodies, their erratic mobilities, and daily encounters across urban public spaces, Yıldırım discusses the politics of impunity, violence, and care in Turkey. Animal rights and ecology activist. Teaching Fellow at The New School Global, Urban and Environmental Programs (GLUE), and doctoral fellow at Istanbul Research Institute. Yıldırım currently works at Istanbul Planning Agency as an expert researcher on Climate Crisis, Ecology, and Environmental Politics.