Department of Politics and International Relations, Pembroke College

Start year: 2022

Supervisor: Professor Neil Ketchley

Research Interests: Turkish politics, political rhetoric, political Islam in Turkey, political sociology, secularism, electoral politics, Sufi orders and Naqshbandi tariqas in Turkey

Humeyra Biricik is a doctoral student who studies the interactions between political Islamists and Naqshbandi tariqas in Turkey, the role of women in Turkish politics, as well as the evolution of political rhetoric used by right-wing Turkish political party leaders. 

Before Oxford, she obtained an MPhil Degree from the University of Cambridge in Economic and Political Sociology. Her MPhil dissertation titled “Resurrecting God: Analyzing Wartime Desecularization in France, the Soviet Union, and Turkey” was awarded the Cambridge Department of Sociology Polity Prize, as well as the Wolfson College Jennings Prize for the best dissertation and the best overall mark. She also holds a BA from Georgetown University in Government, Economics, and Sociology with a concentration in Comparative Politics. Her BA Honours thesis titled “Varieties of Laïcité and State Secularisms,” which she defended with a distinction, was awarded a department prize.

Alongside her academic endeavors, Humeyra is passionate about empowering women and reducing the gender gap in academia. Formerly, she worked for the Council of Higher Education in Turkey, where she worked on a project titled “She Figures 2021,” an initiative started by the European Commission to address gender inequality in academia, research, and innovation. She also worked at organizations, partnered with the Turkish Ministry of Family and Social Services to empower girls who are orphaned and under the foster care system in Turkey and support women who were victims of intimate partner violence.