Dilek Özkan (PhD)

Winter Semester 2020/2021

Dilek Özkan is a visiting research fellow in the field of excellence, spending winter semester 2020/21 in Graz. She currently conducts a postdoctoral research entitled “Migration flows in South-Eastern Europe during and after the Greek Revolution (1821-1869)” affiliated with the University of Macedonia, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies. Her research interests include Ottoman-Greek relations, borders, fortresses, borderlands and migrations, and population movements in Southeast Europe. During her time at the University of Graz Özkan will hold a brown bag seminar on "Migrants, Refugees and Borders Between Greece & Turkey", exploring Turkey and Greece relations in context of recent developments regarding border crossings of refugees and migrants in the region. Although Turkey and the EU had reached an agreement in 2016 to control the irregular migrant crossings from Turkey to the EU, its effectiveness has been criticized by different agents, since the problems endured and expected change did not occur. The current migration crisis is one of the biggest challenges to the concept of Europeanization compared to historical migration flows in the region. Adding a historical perspective to this current conflict, this brown bag examines the cross-border mobility and borders between Greece and Turkey following the Greek Revolution of 1821.

"Through a comparative approach, I aim to contribute in better understanding the challenges of current migration crisis in the South-Eastern Europe."

Özkan received her PhD in History from the University of Athens in 2016. Her dissertation examines the first Ottoman-Greek borders and Ottoman modernisation efforts in the borderland region of Thessaly. During her PhD study, she was awarded scholarships from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation and the Alexander Onassis Public Foundation. She finished her MA in History from Boğaziçi University, and her BA in History from Istanbul Bilgi University. Previously, she was visiting scholar at the University of Oxford, Faculty of Oriental Studies.

Brown Bag: Migrants, Refugees and Borders Between Greece & Turkey