Smuggling Law: Unsettled Sovereignties in Turkey’s Kurdish Borderlands
A Crown Seminar with Fırat Bozçalı, in conversation with Elif Babül
Wednesday, March 4
11 AM-12:15 PM
Online (Register for virtual attendance)
Smuggling is usually imagined as operating outside the law. Along the border between Turkey and Iran, however, smugglers often work through the law itself. In this Crown Seminar, Fırat Bozçalı shows how Turkey’s expanded anti-smuggling laws have turned criminal courts into unexpected arenas where Kurdish smugglers and their lawyers challenge state authority. In conversation with Elif Babül, he explores what these legal struggles tell us about sovereignty, law, and political power in border regions, with implications that extend beyond the Kurdish case.
Fırat Bozçalı is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto.
Elif Babül is a professor of anthropology at Mount Holyoke University.