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Selin Çağatay is an interdisciplinary researcher who works across the fields of gender studies, history, political science, and political geography. Her research concerns past and present gendered politics and social justice struggles in Turkey and transnationally. It is dedicated to investigating cross-border collaboration, influence, and exchange; integrating into feminist, postcolonial, and global historiographies the so far understudied groups, time periods, and forms of activism; and critically interrogating the concepts that have marked the discussions around gender equality and sexual rights globally. As part of her research at CEU, she investigates educational activities targeting urban and rural women to integrate or advance them in the world of gainful work; including literacy, home economics, vocational and technical training, handicrafts, farming, family planning, and trade union and labour rights. Covering the period from the 1940s until the 1990s, she focuses on the differential agendas of local and international (e.g. AFL-CIO, ICFTU, ILO, UNESCO) actors involved, and explores different scales of activisms and their entanglement. Between 2021 and 2025, she pursued this research as part of the ERC Advanced Grant project ZARAH: Women’s labour activism in Eastern Europe and transnationally, from the age of empires to the late 20th century (PI Susan Zimmermann, https://zarah-ceu.org/).
Selin holds a Ph.D. degree in Comparative Gender Studies at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Before joining CEU, she was a postdoctoral fellow in gender studies in the research project Spaces of resistance. A study of gender and sexualities in times of transformation at the Department of Cultural Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She taught courses on interdisciplinary gender research, gender regimes, women's activism, NGOs, transnational feminism, and cultural politics at Central European University (Hungary), Eötvös Lorand University (Hungary), and Gothenburg University (Sweden).
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Selected Publications
Books, Edited Books:
2025. Women’s Labour Activism in Eastern Europe and Beyond. A New Transnational History. Co-authors Mátyás Erdélyi, Alexandra Ghiț, Olga Gnydiuk, Veronika Helfert, Ivelina Masheva, Zhanna Popova, Jelena Tešija, Eszter Varsa, and Susan Zimmermann. Open Access by UCL Press, Work Around the World series: https://uclpress.co.uk/book/womens-labour-activism-in-eastern-europe-and-beyond/.
2023. Through the Prism of Gender and Work: Women’s Labour Struggles in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, 19th and 20th Centuries. Co-editors Alexandra Ghit, Olga Gnydiuk, Veronika Helfert, Ivelina Masheva, Zhanna Popova, Jelena Tešija, Eszter Varsa, and Susan Zimmermann. Brill, Studies in Global Social History series: https://brill.com/display/title/68995.
2022. Feminist and LGBTI+ Activism across Russia, Scandinavia and Turkey. Transnationalizing Spaces of Resistance. Co-authors Mia Liinason and Olga Sasunkevich. Open Access by Palgrave Macmillan, Thinking Gender in Transnational Times series: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030844509.
Articles, Book Chapters:
In press. ‘Gender and International Labour Education in the 1960s: US Foreign Policy, Turkish Trade Unionists, and Women in USAID Training Programs’. In Nested Internationalisms: Labor activism across social movements in the Twentieth century, edited by Francesca Piana, Donald Weber, and Susan Zimmermann. Palgrave Macmillan, Labour in History and Society series.
2024. “Women workers’ education at the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions: excavating histories of transnational collaboration with the ICFTU.” Labor History, vol. 65, no. 27, 273–87. Open Access: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0023656X.2023.2272125?src=.
2024. “Conferencing in times of climate crisis and Covid-19: feminist and queer reflections on the digital shift in academic work.” Co-authors Olga Sasunkevich, Mia Liinason, Lena Martinsson. Globalizations, vol. 21, no. 7, 1272–89. Open Access: https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2024.2336645.
2023. "Women’s Labour Struggles in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond: Toward a Long-Term, Transregional, Integrative, and Critical Approach." Co-aurthors Mátyás Erdélyi, Alexandra Ghiț, Olga Gnydiuk, Veronika Helfert, Ivelina Masheva, Zhanna Popova, Jelena Tešija, Eszter Varsa, and Susan Zimmermann. In Çağatay et al., eds., Through the Prism of Gender and Work: Women’s Labour Struggles in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, 19th and 20th Centuries, Leiden: Brill, 1–80. Open Access: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004682481_002.
2023. “Collective resilience and resistance in hybrid times: gender struggles in Germany, Turkey and Sweden.” Co-authors Zeynep Gülru Göker, Olga Selin Hünler, and Aslı Polatdemir. Gender, Place & Culture, vol. 31, no. 11, 1514–37. Open Access: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2023.2226362.
2023. “Introduction: Reimagining Gender Equality Struggles towards a More Inclusive History.” Co-author Elife Biçer-Deveci. GTOT/ Diyâr. Journal of Ottoman, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, 5–19.
2023. “Varieties of exceptionalism: A conversation.” Co-authors Mia Liinason and Olga Sasunkevich. In Mia Liinason and Elisabeth L. Engebretsen, eds., Transforming Identities in Contemporary Europe, London: Routledge, 154–175. Open Access: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003245155.
2023. "Revisiting feminist historiography on women's activism in Turkey: beyond the grand narrative of waves." Co-author Sevgi Adak. Women's History Review. Open Access: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2023.2198107?src=…;
2023. "'If women stop, the world stops': forging transnational solidarities with the International Women’s Strike." International Feminist Journal of Politics, vol. 25, no. 4, 637–663. Open Access: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616742.2023.2170259.
2022. "Unsettling the political: conceptualizing the political in feminist and LGBTI+ activism across Russia, the Scandinavian countries, and Turkey." Co-authors Hülya Arik, Mia Liinason and Olga Sasunkevich. International Feminist Journal of Politics, vol. 25, no. 4, 687–710. Open Access: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616742.2022.2130806.
2022. “Turkey and Eastern Europe: Historicising Geopolitical Convergences in Gender Politics.” In Daniela Huber and Lorenzo Kamel, eds., Decolonising (Knowledge on) Euro-Mediteranean Relations: Insights on Shared Histories and Futures, Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) Research Series 7, 43–54. Open Access: https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iairs_7.pdf.
2020. “Feminist Strike. Reflections on the International Women's Strike, 2017 − ?” Contradictions: A Journal for Critical Thought, vol. 4, no. 2, 115−123.
2020. “Kemalist feminizm. Kadın hareketi tarihinin göz ardı edilmiş ‘bariz gerçeği’” [Kemalist feminism. The ignored ‘obvious truth’ of the history of women’s movement]. In Nacide Berber and Feryal Saygılıgil, eds., Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce, Vol. 10 Feminizm [Political Thought in Modern Turkey, Vol. 10 Feminism], Istanbul: Iletişim Yayınları, 313−338.
2018. “Women's Coalitions Beyond the Laicism-Islamism Divide in Turkey: Towards an Inclusive Struggle for Gender Equality?” Social Inclusion, vol. 6, no. 4 (November), 48–58. Open Access: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/1546.
2018. “Feminists in, against (and beyond?) the state: Women's rights, global gender equality regime, and Turkey’s gender politics in the 21st century.” In Diana Mulinari and Lena Martinsson, eds., Dreaming Global Change – Doing Local feminisms. Visions of Feminism. Global North /Global South Encounters, Conversations and Disagreements, New York and Oxon: Routledge, 58–80.