Anna J Secor
Biographic Data
| ID | 1474467 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anna J Secor |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anna J |
| FAMILY NAME | Secor |
| SIGNATURE | SECOR A J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Kentucky |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 513 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Progress in human geography and AI
In the gap between my thoughts and yours
Uneasy Neighbors
This study takes a critical perspective on the making of sectarian difference and Alevi precarity in contemporary Turkey. Drawing on our research from 2013 to 2016, we present an analysis of stories and conversations that took place amongst Alevi and Sunni focus group participants, primarily in Istanbul. These conversations illustrate how sectarian difference can be made in the relations between neighbors as differences become coded as sectarian …
The problem of the future in the spacetime of resettlement
How do the lost futures of forced displacement converge with the impasse of being resettled to a "post-future" society such as the U.S.? Based on interviews conducted between 2016 and 2019 with resettlement agents, service providers and Iraqis resettled in the U.S., we argue that the condemnation of "expectations" (that is, realistic hope) coupled with the demand for refugees' gratitude means that Iraqis resettled to the U.S. are asked to sustain…
Trauma as Displacement
Trauma does not have a single definition. Within Western paradigms, across humanities and social sciences, it has largely been characterized through temporal and spatial dislocation. Critical studies of trauma, however, suggest that such framings of rupture, catastrophe, and mass displacement can obscure longer term and structural forms of violence, such as colonialism and gender-based violence. This article explores the displacement, emplacement…
A Place More Void
Public Privates
Marcia R. England. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. xxi and 189 pp., bibliography, index. $50.00 cloth (ISBN 978-1-4962-0580-3), $30.00 paper (ISBN 978-1-4962-0672-5), $30.00 electr
Walter Benja-Memes
This paper aims to unlock the potential for the politicization of art in the age of the meme. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s ideas, we suggest that technologies of viral reproduction create the tools and conditions for blasting the present moment out of the oppressive vice of classical historiography. While fascism retrenches on “art for art’s sake” in defense of principles of origin, authenticity, and mastery, we envision a politicization of the a…
Thinking space differently
The relation between difference and space has long been and continues to be an animating problem in theoretical and political conversations across the discipline of geography, including in much recent work on encounter. In this paper, we make the case for the value of a less explored angle on space in Deleuze's work, which we call the topologies of space‐as‐difference. We highlight the Möbius strip as a central figure in his ontological system, a…
A geopolitics of trauma
In this paper we map out what we are calling a “geopolitics of trauma” by examining the role of trauma in transnational refugee regimes and the individualisation of geopolitical relations through mental health diagnosis and service provision. Focusing on one site of entry into the international regime of refugee administration, we present findings from fieldwork that we conducted in August, 2015 in Turkey with NGO s and IGO s involved in the prot…
Devout Muslim masculinities
While the academic focus on Muslim women’s dress and comportment has enriched our understanding of the multifaceted formation of pious femininities, there has been much less consideration of the embodied practices of Muslim men. What work does exist on Middle Eastern men’s piety, sexuality, and everyday conduct too often falls back on established categories, such as traditional, Western, or Islamic identities. Yet it is crucial not only to critic…
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography aims to account for the intellectual and worldly developments that have taken place in and around political geography in the last 10 years. Bringing together established names in the field as well as new scholars, it highlights provocative theoretical and conceptual debates on political geography from a range of global perspectives
Difference and the faciality machine, or, how I underestimated my moustache growing ability
It is June 2013 at the TEDGlobal1 conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. On the stage there are two chairs. In one, a woman who looks Chinese sits primly in a high collarless shirt and loose pants. In
Towards a post-mathematical topology
This paper aims to bring clarity to the term topology as it has been deployed in human geography. We summarize the insights that geographers have garnered from thinking topologically about space and power. We find that many deployments of topology both overstretch topology’s conceptual merit and limit its insights for spatial thinking. We show how topology, with its structuralist and modernist baggage, requires some theoretical reworking to be pu…
Reading Joel Wainwright's Decolonizing Development
New transnational geographies of Islamism, capitalism and subjectivity
The rise of the transnational veiling‐fashion industry in Turkey has taken place within the context of neoliberal economic restructuring, the subjection of the veil to new regulations, and the resurgence of Islamic identities worldwide. Even after almost two decades since its first catwalk appearance, the idea of ‘veiling‐fashion’ continues to be controversial, drawing criticism from secular and devout Muslim segments of society alike. Analysing …
Žižek's Dialectics of Difference and the Problem of Space
This paper begins with the question of what about dialectics might be interesting to geographers today. I argue that, for those who are interested in engaging dialectical thought, Slavoj Žižek's work offers a productive way of conceptualizing an open dialectic without synthesis or totality. The goal of this paper is to explain Žižek' idea of the parallax view and to demonstrate its relevance for geographers. To do this, I begin by showing how Žiž…
Between Longing and Despair
This paper begins as an investigation of the spatiality of the state in Turkey. In everyday life the state is experienced and recognized through a multiplicity of sites, agents, institutions, techniques, and regulatory capacities. Given this fragmentation, I ask how it is that the state is conceptualized as having a reality beyond its incoherence. Through a discursive analysis of focus-group discussions with lower-class and lower-middle-class men…
Social and political trust in Istanbul and Moscow
Aiming to bring local context into studies of social capital, our study uses samples of 4006 individuals in Istanbul and 3476 in Moscow using a comparable questionnaire. The stratification of each city's neighbourhoods on the basis of socio‐economic characteristics provided the basis for the sampling. Using a multilevel modelling procedure, we show both that locality matters (neighbourhood effect proved significant) and that social capital may in…
Fahrenheit 9/11
Citizenship in the City
This study examines citizenship, gender, and urbanism in Istanbul, Turkey. An analysis of four focus group discussions conducted in Istanbul in 1999 focuses on the multiple ways in which migrant women of different ages and backgrounds position themselves in relation to Istanbul's urban community, their own "right to the city" and the informal and formal channels through which claims to urban space and resources are pursued. Situating this study w…
Belaboring Gender
From focus-group and survey research conducted in Istanbul between 1998 and 2002, I argue that the spatial practice of work is critical to the constitution of what it means to 'be a woman' in the Turkish context. My approach to gender and work makes use of Butler's theory of performativity in order to show how discourses and practices of work are not only implicated in the production of male and female gender identities but also provide a variety…
The Veil and Urban Space in Istanbul
The issue of veiling marks an ideological fault line in urban Turkey. Based on focus groups conducted with migrant women to Istanbul in the spring of 1999, this article aims to show how veiling, as a form of dress, is a spatial practice that gains its significance through women's urban mobility and their construction of Islamic understandings in the city. At the same time, both urban mobility and Islamic knowledge are structured by wider relation…
Toward a Feminist Counter-geopolitics
Geopolitical reasoning privileges the global scale as the locus of spatialised power relations. For the past 20 years, Islam and Islamist politics have figured prominently in geopolitical discourses of international conflict. This paper puts forth a feminist counter-geopolitics that focuses on how Islamist political practices and discourses are written into everyday life and urban spaces. Approaching political activity as comprising both formal v…
Gender, Identity and Place
List of Plates. List of Figures and Tables. 1. Introduction: Place and Gender. 2. In and Out of Place: Bodies and Embodiment. 3. Home, Place and Identity. 4. Community, City and Locality. 5. Work/Workplaces. 6. In Public: the Street and Spaces of Pleasure. 7. Gendering the Nation--State. 8. Displacements. 9. Postscript: Reflections on the Dilemmas of Feminist Research. References. Index
The Veil and Urban Space in Istanbul
The issue of veiling marks an ideological fault line in urban Turkey. Based on focus groups conducted with migrant women to Istanbul in the spring of 1999, this article aims to show how veiling, as a form of dress, is a spatial practice that gains its significance through women's urban mobility and their construction of Islamic understandings in the city. At the same time, both urban mobility and Islamic knowledge are structured by wider relation…
Towards a post-mathematical topology
This paper aims to bring clarity to the term topology as it has been deployed in human geography. We summarize the insights that geographers have garnered from thinking topologically about space and power. We find that many deployments of topology both overstretch topology’s conceptual merit and limit its insights for spatial thinking. We show how topology, with its structuralist and modernist baggage, requires some theoretical reworking to be pu…
Between Longing and Despair
This paper begins as an investigation of the spatiality of the state in Turkey. In everyday life the state is experienced and recognized through a multiplicity of sites, agents, institutions, techniques, and regulatory capacities. Given this fragmentation, I ask how it is that the state is conceptualized as having a reality beyond its incoherence. Through a discursive analysis of focus-group discussions with lower-class and lower-middle-class men…
Toward a Feminist Counter-geopolitics
Geopolitical reasoning privileges the global scale as the locus of spatialised power relations. For the past 20 years, Islam and Islamist politics have figured prominently in geopolitical discourses of international conflict. This paper puts forth a feminist counter-geopolitics that focuses on how Islamist political practices and discourses are written into everyday life and urban spaces. Approaching political activity as comprising both formal v…
A geopolitics of trauma
In this paper we map out what we are calling a “geopolitics of trauma” by examining the role of trauma in transnational refugee regimes and the individualisation of geopolitical relations through mental health diagnosis and service provision. Focusing on one site of entry into the international regime of refugee administration, we present findings from fieldwork that we conducted in August, 2015 in Turkey with NGO s and IGO s involved in the prot…
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography aims to account for the intellectual and worldly developments that have taken place in and around political geography in the last 10 years. Bringing together established names in the field as well as new scholars, it highlights provocative theoretical and conceptual debates on political geography from a range of global perspectives
Citizenship in the City
This study examines citizenship, gender, and urbanism in Istanbul, Turkey. An analysis of four focus group discussions conducted in Istanbul in 1999 focuses on the multiple ways in which migrant women of different ages and backgrounds position themselves in relation to Istanbul's urban community, their own "right to the city" and the informal and formal channels through which claims to urban space and resources are pursued. Situating this study w…
Devout Muslim masculinities
While the academic focus on Muslim women’s dress and comportment has enriched our understanding of the multifaceted formation of pious femininities, there has been much less consideration of the embodied practices of Muslim men. What work does exist on Middle Eastern men’s piety, sexuality, and everyday conduct too often falls back on established categories, such as traditional, Western, or Islamic identities. Yet it is crucial not only to critic…
New transnational geographies of Islamism, capitalism and subjectivity
The rise of the transnational veiling‐fashion industry in Turkey has taken place within the context of neoliberal economic restructuring, the subjection of the veil to new regulations, and the resurgence of Islamic identities worldwide. Even after almost two decades since its first catwalk appearance, the idea of ‘veiling‐fashion’ continues to be controversial, drawing criticism from secular and devout Muslim segments of society alike. Analysing …
Social and political trust in Istanbul and Moscow
Aiming to bring local context into studies of social capital, our study uses samples of 4006 individuals in Istanbul and 3476 in Moscow using a comparable questionnaire. The stratification of each city's neighbourhoods on the basis of socio‐economic characteristics provided the basis for the sampling. Using a multilevel modelling procedure, we show both that locality matters (neighbourhood effect proved significant) and that social capital may in…
Thinking space differently
The relation between difference and space has long been and continues to be an animating problem in theoretical and political conversations across the discipline of geography, including in much recent work on encounter. In this paper, we make the case for the value of a less explored angle on space in Deleuze's work, which we call the topologies of space‐as‐difference. We highlight the Möbius strip as a central figure in his ontological system, a…
Trauma as Displacement
Trauma does not have a single definition. Within Western paradigms, across humanities and social sciences, it has largely been characterized through temporal and spatial dislocation. Critical studies of trauma, however, suggest that such framings of rupture, catastrophe, and mass displacement can obscure longer term and structural forms of violence, such as colonialism and gender-based violence. This article explores the displacement, emplacement…
The problem of the future in the spacetime of resettlement
How do the lost futures of forced displacement converge with the impasse of being resettled to a "post-future" society such as the U.S.? Based on interviews conducted between 2016 and 2019 with resettlement agents, service providers and Iraqis resettled in the U.S., we argue that the condemnation of "expectations" (that is, realistic hope) coupled with the demand for refugees' gratitude means that Iraqis resettled to the U.S. are asked to sustain…
Žižek's Dialectics of Difference and the Problem of Space
This paper begins with the question of what about dialectics might be interesting to geographers today. I argue that, for those who are interested in engaging dialectical thought, Slavoj Žižek's work offers a productive way of conceptualizing an open dialectic without synthesis or totality. The goal of this paper is to explain Žižek' idea of the parallax view and to demonstrate its relevance for geographers. To do this, I begin by showing how Žiž…
Belaboring Gender
From focus-group and survey research conducted in Istanbul between 1998 and 2002, I argue that the spatial practice of work is critical to the constitution of what it means to 'be a woman' in the Turkish context. My approach to gender and work makes use of Butler's theory of performativity in order to show how discourses and practices of work are not only implicated in the production of male and female gender identities but also provide a variety…
Uneasy Neighbors
This study takes a critical perspective on the making of sectarian difference and Alevi precarity in contemporary Turkey. Drawing on our research from 2013 to 2016, we present an analysis of stories and conversations that took place amongst Alevi and Sunni focus group participants, primarily in Istanbul. These conversations illustrate how sectarian difference can be made in the relations between neighbors as differences become coded as sectarian …
Walter Benja-Memes
This paper aims to unlock the potential for the politicization of art in the age of the meme. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s ideas, we suggest that technologies of viral reproduction create the tools and conditions for blasting the present moment out of the oppressive vice of classical historiography. While fascism retrenches on “art for art’s sake” in defense of principles of origin, authenticity, and mastery, we envision a politicization of the a…
Gender, Identity and Place
List of Plates. List of Figures and Tables. 1. Introduction: Place and Gender. 2. In and Out of Place: Bodies and Embodiment. 3. Home, Place and Identity. 4. Community, City and Locality. 5. Work/Workplaces. 6. In Public: the Street and Spaces of Pleasure. 7. Gendering the Nation--State. 8. Displacements. 9. Postscript: Reflections on the Dilemmas of Feminist Research. References. Index
Toward a Feminist Counter-geopolitics
Geopolitical reasoning privileges the global scale as the locus of spatialised power relations. For the past 20 years, Islam and Islamist politics have figured prominently in geopolitical discourses of international conflict. This paper puts forth a feminist counter-geopolitics that focuses on how Islamist political practices and discourses are written into everyday life and urban spaces. Approaching political activity as comprising both formal v…
Gender, Identity and Place
List of Plates. List of Figures and Tables. 1. Introduction: Place and Gender. 2. In and Out of Place: Bodies and Embodiment. 3. Home, Place and Identity. 4. Community, City and Locality. 5. Work/Workplaces. 6. In Public: the Street and Spaces of Pleasure. 7. Gendering the Nation--State. 8. Displacements. 9. Postscript: Reflections on the Dilemmas of Feminist Research. References. Index
The Veil and Urban Space in Istanbul
The issue of veiling marks an ideological fault line in urban Turkey. Based on focus groups conducted with migrant women to Istanbul in the spring of 1999, this article aims to show how veiling, as a form of dress, is a spatial practice that gains its significance through women's urban mobility and their construction of Islamic understandings in the city. At the same time, both urban mobility and Islamic knowledge are structured by wider relation…
Citizenship in the City
This study examines citizenship, gender, and urbanism in Istanbul, Turkey. An analysis of four focus group discussions conducted in Istanbul in 1999 focuses on the multiple ways in which migrant women of different ages and backgrounds position themselves in relation to Istanbul's urban community, their own "right to the city" and the informal and formal channels through which claims to urban space and resources are pursued. Situating this study w…
Belaboring Gender
From focus-group and survey research conducted in Istanbul between 1998 and 2002, I argue that the spatial practice of work is critical to the constitution of what it means to 'be a woman' in the Turkish context. My approach to gender and work makes use of Butler's theory of performativity in order to show how discourses and practices of work are not only implicated in the production of male and female gender identities but also provide a variety…
Fahrenheit 9/11
Social and political trust in Istanbul and Moscow
Aiming to bring local context into studies of social capital, our study uses samples of 4006 individuals in Istanbul and 3476 in Moscow using a comparable questionnaire. The stratification of each city's neighbourhoods on the basis of socio‐economic characteristics provided the basis for the sampling. Using a multilevel modelling procedure, we show both that locality matters (neighbourhood effect proved significant) and that social capital may in…
Between Longing and Despair
This paper begins as an investigation of the spatiality of the state in Turkey. In everyday life the state is experienced and recognized through a multiplicity of sites, agents, institutions, techniques, and regulatory capacities. Given this fragmentation, I ask how it is that the state is conceptualized as having a reality beyond its incoherence. Through a discursive analysis of focus-group discussions with lower-class and lower-middle-class men…
Žižek's Dialectics of Difference and the Problem of Space
This paper begins with the question of what about dialectics might be interesting to geographers today. I argue that, for those who are interested in engaging dialectical thought, Slavoj Žižek's work offers a productive way of conceptualizing an open dialectic without synthesis or totality. The goal of this paper is to explain Žižek' idea of the parallax view and to demonstrate its relevance for geographers. To do this, I begin by showing how Žiž…
New transnational geographies of Islamism, capitalism and subjectivity
The rise of the transnational veiling‐fashion industry in Turkey has taken place within the context of neoliberal economic restructuring, the subjection of the veil to new regulations, and the resurgence of Islamic identities worldwide. Even after almost two decades since its first catwalk appearance, the idea of ‘veiling‐fashion’ continues to be controversial, drawing criticism from secular and devout Muslim segments of society alike. Analysing …
Reading Joel Wainwright's Decolonizing Development
Towards a post-mathematical topology
This paper aims to bring clarity to the term topology as it has been deployed in human geography. We summarize the insights that geographers have garnered from thinking topologically about space and power. We find that many deployments of topology both overstretch topology’s conceptual merit and limit its insights for spatial thinking. We show how topology, with its structuralist and modernist baggage, requires some theoretical reworking to be pu…
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography aims to account for the intellectual and worldly developments that have taken place in and around political geography in the last 10 years. Bringing together established names in the field as well as new scholars, it highlights provocative theoretical and conceptual debates on political geography from a range of global perspectives
Difference and the faciality machine, or, how I underestimated my moustache growing ability
It is June 2013 at the TEDGlobal1 conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. On the stage there are two chairs. In one, a woman who looks Chinese sits primly in a high collarless shirt and loose pants. In
Devout Muslim masculinities
While the academic focus on Muslim women’s dress and comportment has enriched our understanding of the multifaceted formation of pious femininities, there has been much less consideration of the embodied practices of Muslim men. What work does exist on Middle Eastern men’s piety, sexuality, and everyday conduct too often falls back on established categories, such as traditional, Western, or Islamic identities. Yet it is crucial not only to critic…
A geopolitics of trauma
In this paper we map out what we are calling a “geopolitics of trauma” by examining the role of trauma in transnational refugee regimes and the individualisation of geopolitical relations through mental health diagnosis and service provision. Focusing on one site of entry into the international regime of refugee administration, we present findings from fieldwork that we conducted in August, 2015 in Turkey with NGO s and IGO s involved in the prot…
Public Privates
Marcia R. England. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. xxi and 189 pp., bibliography, index. $50.00 cloth (ISBN 978-1-4962-0580-3), $30.00 paper (ISBN 978-1-4962-0672-5), $30.00 electr
Walter Benja-Memes
This paper aims to unlock the potential for the politicization of art in the age of the meme. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s ideas, we suggest that technologies of viral reproduction create the tools and conditions for blasting the present moment out of the oppressive vice of classical historiography. While fascism retrenches on “art for art’s sake” in defense of principles of origin, authenticity, and mastery, we envision a politicization of the a…
Thinking space differently
The relation between difference and space has long been and continues to be an animating problem in theoretical and political conversations across the discipline of geography, including in much recent work on encounter. In this paper, we make the case for the value of a less explored angle on space in Deleuze's work, which we call the topologies of space‐as‐difference. We highlight the Möbius strip as a central figure in his ontological system, a…
A Place More Void
Uneasy Neighbors
This study takes a critical perspective on the making of sectarian difference and Alevi precarity in contemporary Turkey. Drawing on our research from 2013 to 2016, we present an analysis of stories and conversations that took place amongst Alevi and Sunni focus group participants, primarily in Istanbul. These conversations illustrate how sectarian difference can be made in the relations between neighbors as differences become coded as sectarian …
The problem of the future in the spacetime of resettlement
How do the lost futures of forced displacement converge with the impasse of being resettled to a "post-future" society such as the U.S.? Based on interviews conducted between 2016 and 2019 with resettlement agents, service providers and Iraqis resettled in the U.S., we argue that the condemnation of "expectations" (that is, realistic hope) coupled with the demand for refugees' gratitude means that Iraqis resettled to the U.S. are asked to sustain…
Trauma as Displacement
Trauma does not have a single definition. Within Western paradigms, across humanities and social sciences, it has largely been characterized through temporal and spatial dislocation. Critical studies of trauma, however, suggest that such framings of rupture, catastrophe, and mass displacement can obscure longer term and structural forms of violence, such as colonialism and gender-based violence. This article explores the displacement, emplacement…
Progress in human geography and AI
In the gap between my thoughts and yours
Political science (19 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Law (17 works) · Law (15 works) · Politics (14 works) · Gender Studies (11 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Geography (7 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works)