Biography
Umut is a lecturer at International Relations. She is a critical international relations scholar with a research interest in critical ( poststructuralist) border and security studies. She joined Deakin University in 2020 after working as a postdoctoral research fellow in International Ethics at the University of New South Wales.
Her research focuses on the construction of borders in settler colonial states, biopolitics, posthuman borders, and the changing nature of security in the context of global mobility regime. Her work cuts across many areas mainly political geography and international political sociology. Currently, she is working on two projects. One focuses on pandemic borders and explores the multiplication of borders at times of public health crisis. The other project seeks to understand the politics of hope and joy in the context of contemporary border politics. She is also completing her book manuscript, Entangled Lines of Borders.
Her work on borders appeared in leading journals in the field including Security Dialogue, International Political Sociology, Critical Studies on Security, and International Studies Review. Umut's previous writings focused on human security, racism and managing cultural diversity.
Umut holds a BA in IR from Ankara University, and a MA (Research) and a PhD in Politics and International Relations from the University of New South Wales. Umut previously worked as a researcher and a lecturer at several universities including the Australian National University, the University of New South Wales, and Sydney University. She is the co-founder of Australian Critical Border Studies Network.
The full list of her publications can be found at google scholar
Read more on Umut's profileResearch interests
Border Politics
Biopolitics
Critical Approaches to Security
Critical IR Theory (human security, poststructural approaches)
Settler Colonialism
Border Walls & Carceral Spaces
Poststructuralism & Posthumanism
Affiliations
Co-founder, Australian Critical Border Studies Network. https://acbsworking.group/
Teaching interests
International Relations/ Political Theory
Security Studies
Human Security
Human Rights
Social Movements/Activism
Units taught
AIR720 Transnational Activism and Governance
AIR753 Regionalism in International Relations
AIR203 Human Rights in World Politics
AIR729 Human Security in Global Politics
AIR747 Contemporary International Politics
Knowledge areas
International Relations
International Political Sociology
Conferences
2021, Beyond Bare Life: Why do we need to talk about politics of hope and joy in border studies? Millenium Conference, LSE, London, October.
2021 The World-Making Power of Borders, APSA funded workshop ( the co-convenor of the workshop)
2021 Australia's Island Borders, BISA Conference, Forget International Studies? June.
2021 Pandemic Borders: Hotels, Spaces of Detention, Quarantine and Resistance, Online Symposium, Australian Critical Border Studies Network, February 2021 (the Co-convenor of the workshop).
2020 ‘Rethinking Walls and Fences: Entanglements on Posthuman Borders’, OCIS 2020, 9th Biennial Oceanic Conference on International Studies, ANU, 7-11 December 2020.
2020 ‘Pandemic Borders’, Rountable International Relations Theory and the COVID-19 Global Pandemic, International Studies Association (ISA) "Transnationalism in World Politics: Beyond Methodological Nationalism in International Studies" November 5-7, 2020.
2019 ‘The Long “Winter Sleep”: IR’s Colonising Silence on the Question of the Border’, Millennium Conference, Extraction, expropriation, erasure? Knowledge production in International Relations, LSE, London, 19-20 October.
2019 Technologies of Bordering: Creating, Contesting and Resisting Borders, University of Melbourne, 3-5 July.
2019 ‘The affective power of noise on the border’, The 3rd Australian Political Theory and Philosophy Conference, University of Canberra, 15-16 February.
2019 De-Bordering the Border: Towards Cosmopolitan Dialogues, UNSW Canberra (the convenor of the workshop).
2019 HDR Conferece, Writing in Humanities and Social Sciences, Principal Organiser, UNSW Canberra (Convenor).
2018 ‘The politics of noise’, Insecurities of Sovereignty, Griffith University, 18-19 September.
2018 ‘The New Materialist Conversations in Border Studies’, Panel: Posthuman and Nonhuman in a Future Ecological Politics, Borders and Margins, The 25th World Congress, IPSA, Brisbane, Australia, 21-25 July.
2018 ‘Border Walls as Assemblages’, Panel: Border Walls, Borders and Margins, The 25th World Congress, IPSA, Brisbane, Australia, 21-25 July.
2018 ‘The ‘thingly-power’ of border walls’, The Australian Political Theory and Philosophy Conference, USYD, 17-18 February.
2017 ‘Borders as assemblages: Why do we need ‘new materialist’ conversations in border studies?’, The Interpretation of Global Politics: Methods and Epistemologies After the Event, ANU, 2-3 November.
2017 ‘Politics of Becoming-Other: Alternative Spaces of the Border’, Inaugural Australian Political Theory/Philosophy Conference, The University of Melbourne, 17-18 February.
2015 ‘Walking on the lines with Deleuze and Connolly: Reading border walls as heterogeneous sites’, APSA: The Future of Politics and Political Science, University of Canberra, 28-30 September.
2015 ‘Walls of Israel: A New Research Agenda’ Debating the Middle East and Central Asia, Australian National University, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (Middle East & Central Asia), 3-4 July.
2012 ‘Dwelling, enclosures and security’, APSA Continuity and Change in the Middle East and Central Asia, Australian National University, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (Middle East & Central Asia), 30 November-1 December.
2012 ‘Border acts: Performativity, undecidability and the Wall in the West Bank’, The Oceanic Conference on International Studies, University of Sydney, Sydney 18-20 July.
Media appearances
A. Nethery and U. Ozguc, Why are Australians so accepting of hotel quarantine? A long history of confining threats to the state, The Conversation, 5 April 2021.
SBS Radio Interview on the impact on border closures on migrant communities. July, 2021.
U. Ozguc, An Essay on Pandemic Borders: From ‘Immunitary Dispositif’ to Affirmative Ethics, The Disorder of Things, April 23, 2020.
Research groups
Co-founder & Co-convenor, Australian Critical Border Studies Network.
Member, POLIS, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University.
2019-2020 Member, International Ethics, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW, Canberra.
Awards
Australian National University, College of Asia and the Pacific, Teaching Excellence (2018)
Workshop Grant, Australian Political Science Association, with Dr. Suliman and Dr. Aguis ($15000)
Publications
Umut Ozguc, Adrian Little
(2022), pp. 1-23, Geopolitics, London, Eng., C1
Rethinking border walls as fluid meshworks
U Ozguc
(2021), Vol. 52, pp. 287-305, Security Dialogue, C1
Painting the wall: becoming-other in a holey space
Umut Ozguc
(2020), pp. 135-141, Jahnne Pasco-White: Kin, Melbourne, Australia, B1
Borders, detention, and the disruptive power of the noisy-subject
Umut Ozguc
(2020), Vol. 14, pp. 77-93, International political sociology, Oxford, Eng., C1-1
Protests as "Events": the symbolic struggles in 2013 demonstrations in Turkey and Brazil
R Mendonca, S Ercan, U Ozguc, S Reis, P Simoes
(2019), Vol. 27, pp. 1-27, Revista de Sociologia e Politica, Curitiba, Brazil, C1-1
The politics of sameness in the Australian construction industry
Martin Loosemore, Florence Phua, Kevin Dunn, Umut Ozguc
(2011), Vol. 18, pp. 363-380, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Bingley, Eng., C1-1
Remaking Canadian identity: A critical analysis of Canada's human security discourse
Umut Ozguc
(2011), Vol. 7, pp. 37-59, Journal of Human Security, Melbourne, Vic., C1-1
Everyday Ethnic Diversity and Racism on Australian Construction Sites
Kevin Dunn, Martin Loosemore, Florence Phua, Umut Ozguc
(2011), Vol. 10, pp. 129-148, International Journal of Diversity in Organizations, Communities, and Nations: Annual Review, Melbourne, Vic., C1-1
Operatives' experiences of cultural diversity on Australian construction sites
Martin Loosemore, Florence Phua, Kevin Dunn, Umut Ozguc
(2010), Vol. 28, pp. 177-188, Construction Management and Economics, London, Eng., C1-1
Funded Projects at Deakin
Australian Competitive Grants
Mobility injustices, racialised bodies, and Australia¿s pandemic borders: The history of the present
Dr Umut Ozguc
Freilich Early Career Research Small Grants
- 2022: $4,949
Supervisions
No completed student supervisions to report