MİNE YILDIRIM

Assistant Professor MİNE YILDIRIM

B BLOK 2. KAT 209

+90 (212) 5336532 - 1571

Education

Doctorate

THE NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH
Political Science and International Relations

Master's Degree

BOGAZICI UNIVERSITY
Political Science and International Relations

Bachelor's Degree

BOGAZICI UNIVERSITY
Political Science and International Relations

Research Areas

  • Critical animal studies, animal ethics, urban politics, human-animal bond, animal history, climate crisis, political ecology

Work Experience

2021 / Continuing Assistant Professor
Kadir Has University

2019 / 2021 Istanbul Planning Agency (IPA)
Expert researcher on climate crisis, ecology and environmental politics

2018 / 2015 Global, Local, Environmental Studies (GLUE) Program, School of Public Engagement, The New School, NY
Teaching Fellow

2019 / 2016 Parsons School of Design, The New School , NY
Teaching Fellow

2015 / 2013 Politics, New School for Social Research (NSSR), The New School, NY
Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant

Publications

  • Yıldırım, Mine (2024), "Animal necrogeography and landscapes of canine death and suffering in Istanbul", Scottish Geographical Journal ,
  • Yıldırım, Mine (2024), "New directions in the use of dogs in rabies vaccination ", Journal of Applied Animal Ethics Research,
  • Yıldırım, Mine (2024), "Sürgünden itlafa, mahallinde öldürmeden barınaklara: Hayvanlara şiddet ve ihtimamın uzun yüzyılı", Türkiye’de Gündelik Hayattan Kesitler, Tarih Vakfı (The History Foundation)
  • Yıldırım, Mine; Şarbak, Hilal; Özbaş, Çiğdem ; Şaman, Halime (2023), "Depremde İnsan Dışı Varlıklar”, ", Reflektif: Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, DOI: https://doi.org/10.47613/reflektif.2023.118
  • Yıldırım, Mine (2022), "“A Compassionate Correspondence: On the Humane Killing of Street Dogs in Istanbul", YILLIK: Annual of Istanbul Studies , DOI: https://doi.org/10.53979/yillik.2022.5
  • Yıldırım, Mine (2022), "“Endüstriyel tarım ve et endüstrisinden çıkış: Hayvan hakları, emek, ekoloji mücadelesi için imkânlar ve kısıtlar", Ekoloji: Bir Arada Yaşamın Geleceği, Tellekt / Can Yayınları
  • Yıldırım, Mine; Akgül , Onur (2020), "Pandeminin Karanlık Tarafı: İnsan, Yaban, Yeryüzü", Salgın: Tükeniş Çağında Dünyayı Yeniden Düşünmek, Tellekt /Can Yayınları

Projects

Project Name Role in the Project Project Type Fund Establishment Project Date
TUBITAK 3501 National Young Researchers Career Development Project Principal Investigator Research Project TUBITAK National Science Foundation in Turkey 01.07.2024
01.01.2027
Social Recovery Fund Academic Advisor and Coordinator Social Recovery and Disaster Relief Program Turkish Philantrophy Fund (TPF) 01.05.2023
01.05.2024
Animal Rescue and Protection Grant Academic Advisor and Coordinator Grant PETA- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals 01.04.2023
01.04.2024
Pollination Project - Global Animal Advocacy Grant Academic Advisor Grant Pollination Project 01.06.2023
01.09.2023
Between Care and Violence: Street Dogs of Istanbul Principal Investigator Research Grant Istanbul Research Institute 01.09.2019
01.09.2020
Animal Geographies in Istanbul Principal Investigator Research Grant Center for Spatial Justice 01.09.2019
01.09.2020
Animal Carceral Spaces and Necrography in Istanbul Principal Investigator Research Grant GIDEST Andrew W. Mellon Foundation & The New School for Social Research, GIDEST (the Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography & Social Thought) 01.09.2018
01.09.2019

Courses Offered

Course Name Course Code Period
Universal Values and Ethics KHAS105 2023/24 Summer
Animals and Us: Violence, Capital, Justice KHAS1206 2023/24 Spring
The Future of Food: New Directions in Research and Advocacy KHAS1222 2023/24 Spring
Universal Values and Ethics KHAS105 2023/24 Fall
Universal Values and Ethics KHAS105 2024/25 Fall

I am a political scientist, urbanist and critical animal studies scholar with an interest in medical, legal and infrastructural worlds of human-animal entanglements. I am a passionate advocate for animal rights, dedicated to unraveling the complexities of human-animal relationships through a multidisciplinary lens. My work explores the politics of violence and care towards animals, and their myriad material forms: animals forced mobilities through urban landscapes; infrastructural incursions and failures; daily, random and improvised performances of protection, neglect and hostility; the interstitial making of ruins and survival; affective regimes of shared precarity, witnessing to and denial of suffering; legal framework of rights and welfare; technocratic, scientific and medical ordering of life and death. 


 

My main area of specialization is urban animals with a thematic focus on politics of infrastructure, carcerality and mobility across marginalized landscapes of poverty, improvised worlds of subsistence, material and affective regimes of endurance in cities. My work is attentive to the ways animality and marginality are sedimented into disturbed landscapes. I focus on how daily, random and improvised encounters with the animals upend the experience of poverty, destitution and precarity; daily practices and meanings of place-making, boundary-drawing and belonging for many marginalized human denizens. 


 

I earned my Ph.D. in Politics from The New School for Social Research where I developed a keen interest in the intricate relationships between politics, practices and meanings of violence and care towards animals particularly in cities. 


 

I work at the intersection of scholarly  research and community organizing, field research, and grassroot movements. My scholarly work on human-animal bond has helped me to cultivate passion, interest and strong political motivation for animal rights advocacy and community-based work. I am passionate about developing theoretical, academic and intellectual frames of human-animal bond. My political and intellectual engagement is motivated to contribute to thinking, writing and acting that can reinforce daily practices of compassion, empathy, loving and taking care of animals - particularly those that depend on human care for living. I work for legal advocacy for animal rights and welfare, for community organizing with a diverse set of animal lovers, vegan activists, animal health professionals, rescue volunteers, care workers, lawyers and legislators. Expressing these multiple sources of my scholarly expertise and political engagement, my works have appeared in a wide range of venues- academic journals to newspapers, books to magazines, curatorial statements to exhibition texts, documentaries to TV shows, radio broadcasts and podcasts. 


 

I am also the general coordinator of the research-led animal rights and urban studies organization, called Dört Ayaklı Şehir | The Four-Legged City: Urban, Nature, Animal Studies Association. I work for project development in animal rescue and resilience projects. As an expert researcher and rescue professional, I have, sadly, experience in fields of mass destruction and heavy disturbance. As a coordinator of the international animal rescue program called From Ruins to Life (Enkazdan Hayata), I have been developing research and training programs that aim to collectively imagine, design and shape our future from under ruins and rubbles - to a resilient future from out of our shared vulnerabilities and precarities we share with more-than-humans.