Evren Eken | RHUL - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Evren Eken
Place Branding and Public Diplomacy
In this forum piece, we argue that the widespread heraldry regarding artificial intelligence (AI)... more In this forum piece, we argue that the widespread heraldry regarding artificial intelligence (AI) as a panacea in diplomacy and articulating research agendas on the changes it might bring are potentially clouding the future hardships of diplomacy. With all its subfields, International Relations (IR) has gone through numerous "turns", especially during the last two decades which made encounters poised to change the nature of foreign policy-such as new actors, ideas, or technologies-a familiar experience. While these discussions enriched the discipline of IR, hardly any of these turns lived up to their promises. Certainly, we have an increasingly challenging and complex multipolar world ahead of us. This manifests that a broader network of actors, interests, and technologies needs to be considered. AI, indeed, has the potential capacity to assist and disrupt the ways diplomacy works. Yet heralding an anticipatory practice and study of diplomacy based on AI's socio-technical imaginaries and calculations rather than as a participatory process centered on immediate human interaction, resources, intelligence, and rapport bears the potential of obscuring the analytical clarity needed. In short, we argue that the rise of AI should not be discussed as yet another new turn poised to cure diplomacy and international relations. We conclude our piece by reminding scholars to bring analytical focus on what lies at the heart of diplomacy.
Journal of International Political Theory
This article is about weaponisation of emotions through visual culture. It interrogates how geopo... more This article is about weaponisation of emotions through visual culture. It interrogates how geopolitics trickles down to everyday life and becomes personal through the embodiment of screen actors. While International Relations is attempting to move beyond the limits of existing disciplinary methods and methodologies to better grasp the emotional depths of world politics, this article delves into the ‘method’ in performance arts to understand how visual culture diffuses emotional narratives of the state to the population and affectively enables people to experience the international from the perspective of the United States. In this sense, focusing on ‘method acting’ which revolutionised performance arts in the United States from the 1950s, the article examines the mundane encounters in visual culture through which screen/state actors emotionally situate the audience to make them viscerally experience geopolitics, personally feel like a state/warrior and embody a commitment to the wa...
Political Will for War. In P. Joseph, The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives. ... more Political Will for War. In P. Joseph, The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
In P. Joseph, The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
This paper demonstrates that domestic socio-cultural historical developments, including politics,... more This paper demonstrates that domestic socio-cultural historical developments, including politics, have always played a part in Turkey's evolution as a re-emerging power on the world scene. Its "intermestic" (domesticinternational related) feature comes to the foreground to such an extent that its public diplomacy whims can be traced back to deeper domestic hurdles. The ruling political elite and the Turkish government should think twice before further neglecting the intrinsic intermestic nature of the country's public diplomacy; especially where human and civil rights are concerned and with a civil society increasingly objecting digitally to political suppression.
International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2016
Are all-male panels (AMPs) a symptom of continuing gender inequality that needs calling out? Undo... more Are all-male panels (AMPs) a symptom of continuing gender inequality that needs calling out? Undoubtedly. Does ensuring the presence of women on every panel, or even creating all-women panels, offer an effective solution? I’m unconvinced. Insisting that all panels should include women finds support because it is a direct and tangible response to a persistent phenomenon, made infinitely more frustrating by the blithe thoughtlessness that underpins its recurrence. It appears to be a small but welcome and quantifiable step toward correcting the chronic underrepresentation that women in the majority of professional fields still experience. However, settling for this quick fix has some potentially serious side effects for gender equity and diversity. Apparent practicality aside, a “just add women” response to AMPs risks perpetuating not only the notion that gender is binary, essentialized and visible, but also that gender parity between women and men should to be prioritized over other axes of diversity. The binary categorization of gender utilized in the AMP discourse, in which “woman” is the sole logical other of “man,” closes down space for other (non-western, non-binary) gender identities. It also reduces “women” to a reified identity husk, with the complexity and multiplicity of individual identity stripped out in favor of a single monolithic generic label. Gender binarism is a deficient basis on which to try and address difference and inclusivity. In the case of AMPs, it is compounded by reliance on visible markers of gender – principally appearance, but also names and gendered pronouns – to determine whether panelists are men or women. This further reduction of gender identity to what is not only visible but intelligible to the viewer is deeply
Political Will for War. In P. Joseph, The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives. ... more Political Will for War. In P. Joseph, The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Book Reviews by Evren Eken
Transnational Social Review A Social Work Journal
Albeit war-clad and war-torn environment of human history; war as a study topic has been one of t... more Albeit war-clad and war-torn environment of human history; war as a study topic has been one of the strangest neglections of social sciences in general. Notwithstanding the earlier expectations of the 1990s, today, instead of diminishing, war remains an important part of the international political arena. Moreover, the scenes of this arena are either replete with expert views on those wars, or with movies and documentaries framing those wars which much of them taking place in/with an othered Orient. How are those scenes of wars, however, especially those taking place in the Orient, framed? In other words, how do we frame the "the orient in war" and "war in the orient"? To what extent are those framings neutral and how do cultural ways of thinking shape the lethal ways of thinking? Revolving around these questions, the book takes us to a belated quest.
Journal articles by Evren Eken
Part of "Responding to #AllMalePanels: A Collage"
A contribution to the International Feminist Journal of Politics Conversations forum, Responding... more A contribution to the International Feminist Journal of Politics Conversations forum, Responding to #AllMalePanels: A Collage.
Gendered credibility goes beyond the sex of panelists. In this article, I join contributors acros... more Gendered credibility goes beyond the sex of panelists. In this article, I join contributors across academic institutions to discuss a tracking system for more diverse and inclusive panel representation.
The article focuses on the nexus between visual culture and identity formation by implementing a ... more The article focuses on the nexus between visual culture and identity formation by implementing a Lacanian social theory into three paintings by Tintoretto, Velazquez and Dali respectively. During the last decade the importance of everyday life has gradually become a junction in social sciences, ranging from sociology to international relations, visual culture and anthropology. Along with discerning the limits of structural determinations on identity, new approaches on the constraints and powers of individual choices have increasingly started to be welcomed by social theory. Due to that, the very basics of everyday life, such as reality and identity have begun to be the new objects of analyses. However, the importance of visuality, as to its impacts on the structuration of identity is yet to be understood as an ordinary component of everyday life. Hence, the aim of this paper is to set forth an introductory argument for scrutinizing the impact of visual culture on the sources of identity and its wider ties relating to the
changing patterns of socialization and social change through an interdisciplinary perspective. The critical nuance of this introductory argument is that visual culture has a deep and indirect impact on the sources of identity and socialization process, rather than having a direct impact on identity per se.
Türkçe Çalışmalar by Evren Eken
DergiPark (Istanbul University), Dec 21, 2022
Place Branding and Public Diplomacy
In this forum piece, we argue that the widespread heraldry regarding artificial intelligence (AI)... more In this forum piece, we argue that the widespread heraldry regarding artificial intelligence (AI) as a panacea in diplomacy and articulating research agendas on the changes it might bring are potentially clouding the future hardships of diplomacy. With all its subfields, International Relations (IR) has gone through numerous "turns", especially during the last two decades which made encounters poised to change the nature of foreign policy-such as new actors, ideas, or technologies-a familiar experience. While these discussions enriched the discipline of IR, hardly any of these turns lived up to their promises. Certainly, we have an increasingly challenging and complex multipolar world ahead of us. This manifests that a broader network of actors, interests, and technologies needs to be considered. AI, indeed, has the potential capacity to assist and disrupt the ways diplomacy works. Yet heralding an anticipatory practice and study of diplomacy based on AI's socio-technical imaginaries and calculations rather than as a participatory process centered on immediate human interaction, resources, intelligence, and rapport bears the potential of obscuring the analytical clarity needed. In short, we argue that the rise of AI should not be discussed as yet another new turn poised to cure diplomacy and international relations. We conclude our piece by reminding scholars to bring analytical focus on what lies at the heart of diplomacy.
Journal of International Political Theory
This article is about weaponisation of emotions through visual culture. It interrogates how geopo... more This article is about weaponisation of emotions through visual culture. It interrogates how geopolitics trickles down to everyday life and becomes personal through the embodiment of screen actors. While International Relations is attempting to move beyond the limits of existing disciplinary methods and methodologies to better grasp the emotional depths of world politics, this article delves into the ‘method’ in performance arts to understand how visual culture diffuses emotional narratives of the state to the population and affectively enables people to experience the international from the perspective of the United States. In this sense, focusing on ‘method acting’ which revolutionised performance arts in the United States from the 1950s, the article examines the mundane encounters in visual culture through which screen/state actors emotionally situate the audience to make them viscerally experience geopolitics, personally feel like a state/warrior and embody a commitment to the wa...
Political Will for War. In P. Joseph, The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives. ... more Political Will for War. In P. Joseph, The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
In P. Joseph, The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
This paper demonstrates that domestic socio-cultural historical developments, including politics,... more This paper demonstrates that domestic socio-cultural historical developments, including politics, have always played a part in Turkey's evolution as a re-emerging power on the world scene. Its "intermestic" (domesticinternational related) feature comes to the foreground to such an extent that its public diplomacy whims can be traced back to deeper domestic hurdles. The ruling political elite and the Turkish government should think twice before further neglecting the intrinsic intermestic nature of the country's public diplomacy; especially where human and civil rights are concerned and with a civil society increasingly objecting digitally to political suppression.
International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2016
Are all-male panels (AMPs) a symptom of continuing gender inequality that needs calling out? Undo... more Are all-male panels (AMPs) a symptom of continuing gender inequality that needs calling out? Undoubtedly. Does ensuring the presence of women on every panel, or even creating all-women panels, offer an effective solution? I’m unconvinced. Insisting that all panels should include women finds support because it is a direct and tangible response to a persistent phenomenon, made infinitely more frustrating by the blithe thoughtlessness that underpins its recurrence. It appears to be a small but welcome and quantifiable step toward correcting the chronic underrepresentation that women in the majority of professional fields still experience. However, settling for this quick fix has some potentially serious side effects for gender equity and diversity. Apparent practicality aside, a “just add women” response to AMPs risks perpetuating not only the notion that gender is binary, essentialized and visible, but also that gender parity between women and men should to be prioritized over other axes of diversity. The binary categorization of gender utilized in the AMP discourse, in which “woman” is the sole logical other of “man,” closes down space for other (non-western, non-binary) gender identities. It also reduces “women” to a reified identity husk, with the complexity and multiplicity of individual identity stripped out in favor of a single monolithic generic label. Gender binarism is a deficient basis on which to try and address difference and inclusivity. In the case of AMPs, it is compounded by reliance on visible markers of gender – principally appearance, but also names and gendered pronouns – to determine whether panelists are men or women. This further reduction of gender identity to what is not only visible but intelligible to the viewer is deeply
Political Will for War. In P. Joseph, The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives. ... more Political Will for War. In P. Joseph, The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Transnational Social Review A Social Work Journal
Albeit war-clad and war-torn environment of human history; war as a study topic has been one of t... more Albeit war-clad and war-torn environment of human history; war as a study topic has been one of the strangest neglections of social sciences in general. Notwithstanding the earlier expectations of the 1990s, today, instead of diminishing, war remains an important part of the international political arena. Moreover, the scenes of this arena are either replete with expert views on those wars, or with movies and documentaries framing those wars which much of them taking place in/with an othered Orient. How are those scenes of wars, however, especially those taking place in the Orient, framed? In other words, how do we frame the "the orient in war" and "war in the orient"? To what extent are those framings neutral and how do cultural ways of thinking shape the lethal ways of thinking? Revolving around these questions, the book takes us to a belated quest.
Part of "Responding to #AllMalePanels: A Collage"
A contribution to the International Feminist Journal of Politics Conversations forum, Responding... more A contribution to the International Feminist Journal of Politics Conversations forum, Responding to #AllMalePanels: A Collage.
Gendered credibility goes beyond the sex of panelists. In this article, I join contributors acros... more Gendered credibility goes beyond the sex of panelists. In this article, I join contributors across academic institutions to discuss a tracking system for more diverse and inclusive panel representation.
The article focuses on the nexus between visual culture and identity formation by implementing a ... more The article focuses on the nexus between visual culture and identity formation by implementing a Lacanian social theory into three paintings by Tintoretto, Velazquez and Dali respectively. During the last decade the importance of everyday life has gradually become a junction in social sciences, ranging from sociology to international relations, visual culture and anthropology. Along with discerning the limits of structural determinations on identity, new approaches on the constraints and powers of individual choices have increasingly started to be welcomed by social theory. Due to that, the very basics of everyday life, such as reality and identity have begun to be the new objects of analyses. However, the importance of visuality, as to its impacts on the structuration of identity is yet to be understood as an ordinary component of everyday life. Hence, the aim of this paper is to set forth an introductory argument for scrutinizing the impact of visual culture on the sources of identity and its wider ties relating to the
changing patterns of socialization and social change through an interdisciplinary perspective. The critical nuance of this introductory argument is that visual culture has a deep and indirect impact on the sources of identity and socialization process, rather than having a direct impact on identity per se.
DergiPark (Istanbul University), Dec 21, 2022
Yetmişli Yıllarda Türk Sineması, Mete Kaan Kaynar (der.) Türkiye'nin 1970'li Yılları, İstanbul, İletişim Yayınları, 2020
Calışmada kullanılan kaynaklar, kitabın genel yapısı gereğince tüm kitabın sonunda yer almaktadır.
Uluslararası İlişkiler Teorileri, (der.) Ramazan Gözen, İletişim Yayınları, 2014
Bilim tarihi, yaşadığımız dünyanın doğasını, hareket biçimlerini ve temel kanunlarını anlamak içi... more Bilim tarihi, yaşadığımız dünyanın doğasını, hareket biçimlerini ve temel kanunlarını anlamak için yüzyıllardan beri süregelen teorik kamplaşmalara sahne olmuştur. Bilimsel ilerlemenin temelini de aslen düşünsel deneylere dayanan bu soyut tartışmalar yönlendirmektedir. 1 Öte yandan soyut tartışmalar ve teorik farklılıkların sosyal bilimlere has bir özellik ya da zayıflık olarak düşünülmesi doğru değildir. Zira keşfedilen her yeni bilgi bizi ilk bakışta görünmese de son derece önemli ve güçlü diğer etkenlerin varlığı ile yüzleşmeye zorlar. Böylelikle anlamaya çalıştığımız mekanizmaların içinde yeni etkenler keşfeder, onları mevcut denklemlere yerleştirmek için de yeni hipotezler ve teorilere yöneliriz. Bu duruma örnek olarak fiziğin temel kuvvetleri arasındaki farklılıklar verilebilir. Yaygın kanının aksine evrendeki tek belirleyici ve en güçlü kuvvet yerçekimi değildir. Çünkü ölçek değiştikçe fiziksel kuvvetlerin etki alanları da değişmektedir. Sözgelimi yerçekimi Ay'ın mevcut yörüngesinde kalması için elzemken, protonlar gibi gözle görülmesi imkânsız temel yapıtaşları üzerinde güçlü nükleer kuvvet kadar etki sahibi olamaz. Bir başka deyişle; elimizdeki kalemi havaya fırlatırken yerçekimine bir direnç uygulamış olurken, aynı kalemi bi-(*) Yazıya olan değerli katkı ve eleştirilerinden ötürü Efe Sevin ve Ayşe Zarakol'a teşekkür ederim. 1 Bilim tarihinde düşünsel deneylerin önemine dair bkz. Rom Harre, Pavlov's Dogs and Schrödinger's Cat: Scenes From The Living Laboratory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
