Erol Saglam
Associate Fellow
Erol Saglam is a social anthropologist working on reconfigurations of statecraft, its relation to the law, and the changing parameters of political subjectivity at the intersections of conspiracy theories, societal violence, and bureaucratic operations. Following his undergraduate and graduate studies at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Saglam earnt his Ph.D. degree in 2017 from Birkbeck, University of London with his anthropological research on nationalist communities of northeast Turkey. Following his doctoral studies, Saglam worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Stockholm University and is currently a lecturer at Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul. Alongside his interest in political anthropology, Saglam engages in heritage preservation endeavours through his international collaborations. One of these engagements pertain to the preservation strategies for Romeyka, an endangered Greek variety with archaic linguistic characteristics spoken by rural communities in northeast Turkey. Through his collaboration with an international team in Konya, Saglam focuses on unsanctioned diggings (treasure hunts) and explores how dwelling in/by archaeological remnants evoke alternative senses of place, memory, and identity. Saglam’s publications dealt with everyday configurations of Islamic piety in the Turkish context, everyday dynamics that forge and maintain heteronormative masculinities, how Turkish public space accommodates socio-cultural distinctions in different modalities, and the challenges facing ethnographic methodology in contemporary world. His current research interests explore everyday politics by men, reconfigurations of the state and the law, and everyday bureaucracies.