Burak Taşdizen
Burak Taşdizen studied industrial design at Middle East Technical University. He wrote an ethnography of knitting practice over a women’s knitting community, focusing on the micro-economies surrounding the knitting pattern and skill as part of his master’s studies during which he received Course Performance Award from METU Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences. Taşdizen worked as a Research Assistant at Özyeğin University Department of Industrial Design between 2016-2019 and taught undergraduate design studio. Taşdizen’s ethnographically grounded research utilizes a feminist new materialist lens, and is focused on non/human entanglements and situated and embodied knowledge makings around design and medicine. Taşdizen’s research and research-related activities have been supported by Center for Spatial Justice, Expeditions – Research in Applied Anthropology, EASST/4S, Garp Sessions. From 2020 onwards, Burak Taşdizen started working as a Research Associate at Orient-Institut Istanbul, “Human, Medicine, and Society” research field.
Feminist science and technology studies (feminist STS), feminist care ethics, new materialist feminisms, critical posthumanism
Sociology of medicine, in particular sociology of body and body modification practices
Critical masculinity studies
Ethnography for/of design, in particular (communities of) non-professional design practices and non-designer design activisms
Critical animal studies; in particular domesticated animals and construction of animal geographies in the city
28.08.2021: “Tasarımı İnsan Olmayanlara Açmak: Sahanın Söyledikleri”, Gelecek Çalışmaları, organized by Poedat, Gümüşlük, (Turkey).
28.08.2021: “Tasarım-Bakım Dolanıklıkları: Alanyazının Konuştukları”, Gelecek Çalışmaları, organized by Poedat, Gümüşlük, (Turkey).
12.01.2021: “Care as Design: Urban Cats and Affordance Assemblages of Istanbul”, Contemporary Issues in Design, organized by Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Kaya, Istanbul Technical University Department of Industrial Design, online.
19.08.2020: “Dis/media Assemblages Surrounding the Care for Street Cats of Istanbul”, Locating and Timing Matters: Significance and Agency of STS in Emerging Worlds, 18-21 August 2020, organized by European Association for the Study of Science and Technology, Society for Social Studies of Science and Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, online.
18.08.2020: “Everyday Cyborgs: Men with Implanted/Transplanted Hair and its Eigensinn”, Locating and Timing Matters: Significance and Agency of STS in Emerging Worlds, 18-21 August 2020, organized by European Association for the Study of Science and Technology, Society for Social Studies of Science and Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, online.
01.04.2020: “Cartography of Hair:y_less Masculinities: An Introduction”, Orient-Institut Istanbul Research Colloquia, organized by Orient-Institut Istanbul, online.
21.01.2020: “Posthuman Feminist Theory: Body Modification and Empowerment”, Technology and the Body: Care, Empowerment and the Fluidity of Bodies, 21 January 2020, organized by M. Şahinol, R. Langer and B. Taşdizen, Orient-Institut Istanbul, Istanbul (Turkey).
28.12.2019: “İnsanın Dışında, Tasarımın Ötesinde: Sokak Hayvanları, Geçici Birleştirmeler ve Tasarım Aktivizmi”, MAD Araştırma Çalıştayı, 27-28 December 2019, organized by Center for Spatial Justice (Mekanda Adalet Derneği), Istanbul (Turkey).
12.09.2019: “#SağlamTipler: An Exploration of Idealised Masculinity on Hornet”, 2. Uluslararası Erkekler ve Erkeklikler Sempozyumu, 12-14 September 2019, organized by Iniative for Critical Studies of Masculinities (Eleştirel Erkeklik İncelemeleri İnisiyatifi) coordination, supported by Özyeğin University, Raoul Wallenberg Institute and Research Worldwide Istanbul, Istanbul (Turkey).
11.05.2019: “#SağlamTipler: Hornet’te İdealize Edilen Erkekliğin bir Araştırması”, Türkiye’de Erkeklik Çalışmaları: Sorunlar ve İmkanlar, 10-11 May 2019, organized by Iniative for Critical Studies of Masculinities (Eleştirel Erkeklik İncelemeleri İnisiyatifi) coordination, supported by Özyeğin University, Raoul Wallenberg Institute and Research Worldwide Istanbul, Istanbul (Turkey).
26.10.2017: “Politics of the Knitting Pattern: Ethnography of Knitting Practice and a Women’s Knitting Community”, Design Research, organized by Ö. Er, Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul (Turkey).
10.05.2016: “Between Open-source and Commerce: Micropolitics of Authorship and Originality in a Knitting Community”, 15th Annual STS Conference: Critical Issues in Science, Technology and Society Studies, 9–10 May 2016, organized by Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt | Vienna | Graz (STS), the Inter-University Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture (IFZ) and The Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society (IAS-STS) coordination, Graz (Austria).
9.04.2016: “Social Media in a Knitting Community in Ankara, Turkey”, Social Media in Turkey: Uses and impacts in Social and Political Life, 9 April 2016, organized by British Institute Ankara, METU, Ankara (Turkey).
15.05.2015. “Immoral Objects: A Psychogeography of Gentrification in Ulus”, 4T: Design in Times of Turmoil, 14-15 May 2015, organized by 4T Design and Design History Society (4T Tasarım ve Tasarım Tarihi Topluluğu) coordination, Yaşar University, İzmir (Turkey).
Book Chapters:
—-. “İnsanın Dışında, Tasarımın Ötesinde: Sokak Kedileri, Geçici Birleştirmeler ve Tasarım Aktivizmi”. Türkiye’de STS: Bilim ve Teknoloji Çalışmalarına Giriş. Eds. A. Turanlı, M. Şahinol and A. Aydınoğlu. Istanbul Technical University 2020. 225-242. (Accessible here.)
Journal Articles:
—-.“İnsandan Öte Bir İstanbul Düşlemek: Sakat Şehrin Kedi Evleri”. MAD Journal 2. (Forthcoming).
—-. with Şahinol, Melike. “Medicalised Masculinities in Turkey and Iran: The Eigensinn of Hair in Hair Transplantation”. Somatechnics 11(1), Medicalised Masculinities – Somatechnical Interventions (2021). Editors: Karen Hvidtfeldt, Michael Nebeling Petersen, Kristian Møller and Camilla Bruun Eriksen. 48-67. DOI: 10.3366/soma.2021.0339.
—-. “#ÖneÇıkarılanProfil’ler, #SağlamTipler ve Diğerleri: Hornet’in Anlık Bir Fotoğrafı”. Beyond Istanbul: Mekanda Adalet ve Toplumsal Cinsiyet (2021). Editors: Cenk Özbay and Zeynep Gülru Göker. 81-85.
—-. “Knitting Unruly Kinships Through Design, A World-making Assemblage”. EASST Review 39(2) (2020). Editors: Ignacio Farías, Niki Vermeulen, Sarah M. Schönbauer and Vincenzo Pavone. 53-56.
—- with Erözçelik, Alayça. “Designing on the Spot: Learning from the Social Design Projects in Gökçeada/Imbros Island”. The Design Journal 20 (sup1) (2017). DOI: 10.1080/14606925.2017.1352696.
—- with Kaygan, Harun. “Ahlak Dışı Nesneler: Ulus’ta Kentsel Dönüşümün Bir Psikocoğrafyası”. Ankara Araştırmaları Dergisi 4(2) (2016). 89-103. DOI: 10.5505/jas.2016.38257.
Other Publications:
—-. “Feral (Im)Mobilities”. (2021). Locomotion. Editor: İpek Burçak. Berlin & Vienna: Well Gedacht Publishing.
—-. “Imagining a more-than-human Istanbul”. (2020). Supported by Center for Spatial Justice.
—- and Charles John McKinnon Bell. “Ecomasculinist Pregnancy”. (2019). Cyborg Encounters. Supported by STS Turkey.
Blog Posts:
—- with Rieck, Katja & Şahinol, Melike. “Iterations of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Themes and Problem Spaces in Turkey, Iran and Germany,” Orient-Institut Istanbul Blog, 31 July 2020.
—- with Övgü Ülgen. “Enter and Exit Ankara: The Five New Gates of the Turkish Capital“. Mashallah News, 6 May 2015.
Interviews:
—- with Vukašinović, Milan. “Feline Entanglements – Commons, Compassion, and Care,” ANAMED Blog, 1 June 2020.
—- with Max Weber Foundation. “The Medicalization of Bodies Is a Gendered Practice – Interview with Burak Taşdizen,” Knowledge Unbound Blog, 17 March 2020.
A Cartography of Hair:y_less Masculinities. A Comparison between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey.