Yasemin Gülsüm Acar
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 388962 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Yasemin Gülsüm Acar |
| NOMBRES | Yasemin Gülsüm |
| APELLIDO | Acar |
| FIRMA | ACAR Y G |
| AFILIACIONES | University of St Andrews |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8049-7464 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 24 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 111 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 23 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2016 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
The Affect, Context, and Target (ACT) Framework
Drawing on research from the past 30 years, this systematic and narrative review introduces the Affect, Context, and Target (ACT) Framework and synthesizes findings on how emotions shape collective action across different cultural and political contexts. Specifically, it examines the cultures and regimes studied, the types of emotions involved, their emotional targets, and the forms of collective action analyzed. Our systematic review ( N = 156 a…
The effect of common humanity on forgiveness and collective action does not generalise to all victim groups
Prior work has found that making common human identity salient increases forgiveness of perpetrators but reduces collective action intentions among victims of historical atrocities. We conducted three experiments to investigate the generalisability of this effect among Alevis—a religious minority found mainly in Turkey. Study 1 ( N = 222) found that the common human identity manipulation was unsuccessful and did not lead to differences in forgive…
Understanding the 2024 Summer Riots in the UK
The wave of riots in England in summer 2024 constituted the biggest wave of disorder in the country for more than a decade. These were followed by swift policy responses, based on assumptions about the events and the participants, before any detailed empirical investigation had been carried out. There is a need for detailed description of events as a solid basis for both social psychological theory and policy. This article therefore presents case…
The Power of Collective Resilience Against Political Violence and Repression
In contexts of collective violence and its aftermath, people engage in meaning-making that involves various beliefs about their group’s experiences of victimization. These collective victimization beliefs, which include descriptions of the group’s experiences as well as the needs and lessons that arise from them, are dialectical: They may convey not just vulnerability and weakness but also agency, power, and strength. Therefore, some collective v…
“Is voting even effective?” Examining voting and protest as an expression of dissent and their efficacy in risky contexts
In the current contribution, we aim to examine how the political efficacy of different actions is understood in authoritarian contexts and, in particular, whether protest and voting are viewed as an efficacious way to engage in the political process among opposition members. We used an online survey ( N = 152), asked open‐ended questions about (1) motivators for voting, (2) reasons for not voting/indecisiveness, opinions on (3) voting, (4) offlin…
Researching identity in the imposed boundaries of a nation-state
We conducted three meta-analyses on 28 studies examining the role of ethnic and national identity in outgroup attitudes, perception of discrimination against Kurds, and support for minority rights within the context of Turkish–Kurdish conflict (e.g., state oppression against Kurds and Kurdish resistance in Turkey). Results revealed a negative relationship between identity and outgroup attitudes. The role of identity in perceived discrimination an…
The impact of authoritarian regimes on research
Many global contexts have been experiencing a rise in authoritarianism over the past decade. Conducting research on sensitive topics is challenging in general, but doing research in especially authoritarian political contexts is even more difficult. In this article, we take Turkey as a case where the political environment has made conducting social psychological research on sensitive topics such as the Turkish–Kurdish conflict difficult. We utili…
The Making of a Movement (Together)
Drawing on the Social Identity Theory of Leadership, this study explores how Greta Thunberg's influence emerges through group processes where her leadership is sustained among climate activists by perceptions of one of us and doing it for us . Using a qualitative survey of 108 climate activists from the United Kingdom, Turkey and Sweden, we examine how these perceptions are constructed and maintained by climate activists across different socio‐po…
Wear it like armor and it can never be used to hurt you
Reappropriation has been discussed as an identity management strategy as a means to reevaluate oneself in a context that will not allow for large‐scale social change. There are, however, numerous examples of reappropriation of stigmatizing labels as connected to political movements. This research examines whether reappropriation of stigmatizing labels can function as a precursor to collective action. In Study 1, we conducted semi‐structured inter…
Ten years after the Gezi Park protests
The Gezi Park protests are a milestone for system-challenging collective action practices in Turkey. Now, ten years later, we look back on the protests and their legacy. While the protests started in May 2013 as a response to the Taksim Project, which aimed to remove Gezi Park, they brought together thousands of people, including many who were protesting for the first time, to voice their opposition to then Prime Minister Erdoğan and his policies…
Addressing epistemic violence and methodological nationalism through a meta-analytical review on intergroup contact and conflict studies in Turkey
This paper provides an examination of intergroup contact research in the context of the Turkish-Kurdish ‘conflict’ through a meta-analytical scoping review. By doing so, we discuss how dominant biases in the literature such as methodological nationalism and epistemic violence influence research practices and knowledge-production systems in conflict and contact studies conducted under colonial rule. Through a thematic investigation, we found four …
Resistance from generation to generation
The Saturday Mothers ( Cumartesi Anneleri ) are a group that has gathered in Istanbul for a 30‐min sit‐in every Saturday since 1995 seeking justice for forced disappearances and political murders in Turkey. What started with a group of approximately 30 mainly family and close relatives of those who disappeared has grown to include thousands of participants. The initial protests were composed predominantly of mothers of victims, but over the past …
The Dynamic Context of Transformations through Crowds and Collective Action
Historically, social psychologists have conceptualized the crowd and its members as mindless and irrational. More recent research has emphasized the crowd as an agentic space that offers both emergence and endurance of psychological transformations, as related to social identity. Using a social identity approach, models have taken the social context (inter- and intragroup interaction) into account to explain transformations through crowd particip…
To participate or not participate, that’s the question’
The current research investigates whether moral obligation and perceived close vs. distant risks of high vs. moderate risk collective actions are associated with willingness to participate in collective action in the case of Turkey. Two studies were conducted: one with re-placed university students after the July 15, 2016 coup d'état attempt (high-risk context; N1 = 258) and one with climate strikes (moderate risk context; N2 = 162). The findings…
Peace Processes and the Integration of Pro-Government Militias
Militia groups have only recently started to attract scholarly attention in the literature on internal conflicts. This attention is mostly focused on either the causes of their emergence or their functions and performance during the conflict. The role of militia groups in post-conflict processes, however, has not been adequately addressed. This article intends to fill this gap by analyzing the case of village guards, a type of pro-government mili…
Revealing the manifestations of neoliberalism in academia
Academic Collective Action (ACA) stands as a small-scale collective action for social change toward liberation, independence and equity in academia. Academic collectives in Turkey, as an example of ACA, prefigure building academia outside the university by emphasizing the extent to which neoliberal academia has already prepared the groundwork for more recent waves of oppression. In this research, we aim to reveal the manifestations of neoliberali…
Reflecting on research
While researchers have long discussed the impact that ingroup–outgroup identities may have on participant–researcher dynamics, no previous study that we know of has investigated how these identities impact participants’ decisions to participate in research in conflict contexts. In this study, we aimed to examine participants’ perspectives on their decisions to participate in research and how those decisions may be related to both their and the re…
Researching Peace, Conflict, and Power in the Field
Academic activism and its impact on individual‐level mobilization, sources of learning, and the future of academia in Turkey
In January 2016, academics in Turkey distributed a peace petition calling for an end to hostilities and to restart negotiations with the Kurdish movement. The Turkish government responded by opening legal cases, jailing academics, and dismissing them from universities. In the state of emergency following the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, the government's extended powers allowed them to fire thousands of civil servants from every branch of gov…
Resistance in repressive contexts
Empirical research on the social psychological antecedents of collective action has been conducted almost exclusively in democratic societies, where activism is relatively safe. The present research examines the psychological predictors of collective action intentions in contexts where resistance is met with significant repression by the authorities. Combining recent advancements in the collective action literature, our model examines the unique …
Village guards as “in between” in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict
The current paper utilizes new approaches in intergroup conflict studies to examine the village guard system and its role in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Recent work suggests that a two-group paradigm in researching intergroup conflict leaves out important contextual factors that influence trajectories and outcomes of conflict. The current paper is based on a project examining the views of 63 active and retired village guards in five p…
Doing research in conflict contexts
Within social psychology, fieldwork in conflict settings is still not commonplace, despite recent calls for more researchers to engage in fieldwork to understand conflict dynamics. With this article, we wish to emphasize the importance of conducting fieldwork to the future of psychological science, while simultaneously acknowledging the challenges such research entails. We approach the subject as "outsiders," and consider a number of important fa…
What happens after the protests? Understanding protest outcomes through multi-level social change
Over the last few years, large-scale social movements and the consequences of these movements from the perspectives of protesters have been gaining increased attention across the globe. Psychological research has tended to focus on individual or group level change; however, understanding the consequences of these social movements involves realizing that social movements bring about change in different ways: at the individual level, the group leve…
Examining prejudice reduction through solidarity and togetherness experiences among Gezi Park activists in Turkey
Prejudice reduction research has focused on reducing negative regard as a means to improve relations between various groups (e.g., religious, ethnic, political). Though positive regard between groups may be created, these forms of contact and common identification do not alter policy orientations of advantaged groups toward disadvantaged ones. Rather than intergroup contact, it is suggested that a collective action model of prejudice reduction (D…
Resistance in repressive contexts
Empirical research on the social psychological antecedents of collective action has been conducted almost exclusively in democratic societies, where activism is relatively safe. The present research examines the psychological predictors of collective action intentions in contexts where resistance is met with significant repression by the authorities. Combining recent advancements in the collective action literature, our model examines the unique …
Doing research in conflict contexts
Within social psychology, fieldwork in conflict settings is still not commonplace, despite recent calls for more researchers to engage in fieldwork to understand conflict dynamics. With this article, we wish to emphasize the importance of conducting fieldwork to the future of psychological science, while simultaneously acknowledging the challenges such research entails. We approach the subject as "outsiders," and consider a number of important fa…
Examining prejudice reduction through solidarity and togetherness experiences among Gezi Park activists in Turkey
Prejudice reduction research has focused on reducing negative regard as a means to improve relations between various groups (e.g., religious, ethnic, political). Though positive regard between groups may be created, these forms of contact and common identification do not alter policy orientations of advantaged groups toward disadvantaged ones. Rather than intergroup contact, it is suggested that a collective action model of prejudice reduction (D…
What happens after the protests? Understanding protest outcomes through multi-level social change
Over the last few years, large-scale social movements and the consequences of these movements from the perspectives of protesters have been gaining increased attention across the globe. Psychological research has tended to focus on individual or group level change; however, understanding the consequences of these social movements involves realizing that social movements bring about change in different ways: at the individual level, the group leve…
Academic activism and its impact on individual‐level mobilization, sources of learning, and the future of academia in Turkey
In January 2016, academics in Turkey distributed a peace petition calling for an end to hostilities and to restart negotiations with the Kurdish movement. The Turkish government responded by opening legal cases, jailing academics, and dismissing them from universities. In the state of emergency following the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, the government's extended powers allowed them to fire thousands of civil servants from every branch of gov…
To participate or not participate, that’s the question’
The current research investigates whether moral obligation and perceived close vs. distant risks of high vs. moderate risk collective actions are associated with willingness to participate in collective action in the case of Turkey. Two studies were conducted: one with re-placed university students after the July 15, 2016 coup d'état attempt (high-risk context; N1 = 258) and one with climate strikes (moderate risk context; N2 = 162). The findings…
Revealing the manifestations of neoliberalism in academia
Academic Collective Action (ACA) stands as a small-scale collective action for social change toward liberation, independence and equity in academia. Academic collectives in Turkey, as an example of ACA, prefigure building academia outside the university by emphasizing the extent to which neoliberal academia has already prepared the groundwork for more recent waves of oppression. In this research, we aim to reveal the manifestations of neoliberali…
Wear it like armor and it can never be used to hurt you
Reappropriation has been discussed as an identity management strategy as a means to reevaluate oneself in a context that will not allow for large‐scale social change. There are, however, numerous examples of reappropriation of stigmatizing labels as connected to political movements. This research examines whether reappropriation of stigmatizing labels can function as a precursor to collective action. In Study 1, we conducted semi‐structured inter…
Peace Processes and the Integration of Pro-Government Militias
Militia groups have only recently started to attract scholarly attention in the literature on internal conflicts. This attention is mostly focused on either the causes of their emergence or their functions and performance during the conflict. The role of militia groups in post-conflict processes, however, has not been adequately addressed. This article intends to fill this gap by analyzing the case of village guards, a type of pro-government mili…
Reflecting on research
While researchers have long discussed the impact that ingroup–outgroup identities may have on participant–researcher dynamics, no previous study that we know of has investigated how these identities impact participants’ decisions to participate in research in conflict contexts. In this study, we aimed to examine participants’ perspectives on their decisions to participate in research and how those decisions may be related to both their and the re…
Resistance from generation to generation
The Saturday Mothers ( Cumartesi Anneleri ) are a group that has gathered in Istanbul for a 30‐min sit‐in every Saturday since 1995 seeking justice for forced disappearances and political murders in Turkey. What started with a group of approximately 30 mainly family and close relatives of those who disappeared has grown to include thousands of participants. The initial protests were composed predominantly of mothers of victims, but over the past …
Village guards as “in between” in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict
The current paper utilizes new approaches in intergroup conflict studies to examine the village guard system and its role in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Recent work suggests that a two-group paradigm in researching intergroup conflict leaves out important contextual factors that influence trajectories and outcomes of conflict. The current paper is based on a project examining the views of 63 active and retired village guards in five p…
Examining prejudice reduction through solidarity and togetherness experiences among Gezi Park activists in Turkey
Prejudice reduction research has focused on reducing negative regard as a means to improve relations between various groups (e.g., religious, ethnic, political). Though positive regard between groups may be created, these forms of contact and common identification do not alter policy orientations of advantaged groups toward disadvantaged ones. Rather than intergroup contact, it is suggested that a collective action model of prejudice reduction (D…
What happens after the protests? Understanding protest outcomes through multi-level social change
Over the last few years, large-scale social movements and the consequences of these movements from the perspectives of protesters have been gaining increased attention across the globe. Psychological research has tended to focus on individual or group level change; however, understanding the consequences of these social movements involves realizing that social movements bring about change in different ways: at the individual level, the group leve…
Doing research in conflict contexts
Within social psychology, fieldwork in conflict settings is still not commonplace, despite recent calls for more researchers to engage in fieldwork to understand conflict dynamics. With this article, we wish to emphasize the importance of conducting fieldwork to the future of psychological science, while simultaneously acknowledging the challenges such research entails. We approach the subject as "outsiders," and consider a number of important fa…
Village guards as “in between” in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict
The current paper utilizes new approaches in intergroup conflict studies to examine the village guard system and its role in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Recent work suggests that a two-group paradigm in researching intergroup conflict leaves out important contextual factors that influence trajectories and outcomes of conflict. The current paper is based on a project examining the views of 63 active and retired village guards in five p…
Researching Peace, Conflict, and Power in the Field
Academic activism and its impact on individual‐level mobilization, sources of learning, and the future of academia in Turkey
In January 2016, academics in Turkey distributed a peace petition calling for an end to hostilities and to restart negotiations with the Kurdish movement. The Turkish government responded by opening legal cases, jailing academics, and dismissing them from universities. In the state of emergency following the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, the government's extended powers allowed them to fire thousands of civil servants from every branch of gov…
Resistance in repressive contexts
Empirical research on the social psychological antecedents of collective action has been conducted almost exclusively in democratic societies, where activism is relatively safe. The present research examines the psychological predictors of collective action intentions in contexts where resistance is met with significant repression by the authorities. Combining recent advancements in the collective action literature, our model examines the unique …
Revealing the manifestations of neoliberalism in academia
Academic Collective Action (ACA) stands as a small-scale collective action for social change toward liberation, independence and equity in academia. Academic collectives in Turkey, as an example of ACA, prefigure building academia outside the university by emphasizing the extent to which neoliberal academia has already prepared the groundwork for more recent waves of oppression. In this research, we aim to reveal the manifestations of neoliberali…
Reflecting on research
While researchers have long discussed the impact that ingroup–outgroup identities may have on participant–researcher dynamics, no previous study that we know of has investigated how these identities impact participants’ decisions to participate in research in conflict contexts. In this study, we aimed to examine participants’ perspectives on their decisions to participate in research and how those decisions may be related to both their and the re…
To participate or not participate, that’s the question’
The current research investigates whether moral obligation and perceived close vs. distant risks of high vs. moderate risk collective actions are associated with willingness to participate in collective action in the case of Turkey. Two studies were conducted: one with re-placed university students after the July 15, 2016 coup d'état attempt (high-risk context; N1 = 258) and one with climate strikes (moderate risk context; N2 = 162). The findings…
Peace Processes and the Integration of Pro-Government Militias
Militia groups have only recently started to attract scholarly attention in the literature on internal conflicts. This attention is mostly focused on either the causes of their emergence or their functions and performance during the conflict. The role of militia groups in post-conflict processes, however, has not been adequately addressed. This article intends to fill this gap by analyzing the case of village guards, a type of pro-government mili…
The Dynamic Context of Transformations through Crowds and Collective Action
Historically, social psychologists have conceptualized the crowd and its members as mindless and irrational. More recent research has emphasized the crowd as an agentic space that offers both emergence and endurance of psychological transformations, as related to social identity. Using a social identity approach, models have taken the social context (inter- and intragroup interaction) into account to explain transformations through crowd particip…
Addressing epistemic violence and methodological nationalism through a meta-analytical review on intergroup contact and conflict studies in Turkey
This paper provides an examination of intergroup contact research in the context of the Turkish-Kurdish ‘conflict’ through a meta-analytical scoping review. By doing so, we discuss how dominant biases in the literature such as methodological nationalism and epistemic violence influence research practices and knowledge-production systems in conflict and contact studies conducted under colonial rule. Through a thematic investigation, we found four …
Resistance from generation to generation
The Saturday Mothers ( Cumartesi Anneleri ) are a group that has gathered in Istanbul for a 30‐min sit‐in every Saturday since 1995 seeking justice for forced disappearances and political murders in Turkey. What started with a group of approximately 30 mainly family and close relatives of those who disappeared has grown to include thousands of participants. The initial protests were composed predominantly of mothers of victims, but over the past …
The Power of Collective Resilience Against Political Violence and Repression
In contexts of collective violence and its aftermath, people engage in meaning-making that involves various beliefs about their group’s experiences of victimization. These collective victimization beliefs, which include descriptions of the group’s experiences as well as the needs and lessons that arise from them, are dialectical: They may convey not just vulnerability and weakness but also agency, power, and strength. Therefore, some collective v…
“Is voting even effective?” Examining voting and protest as an expression of dissent and their efficacy in risky contexts
In the current contribution, we aim to examine how the political efficacy of different actions is understood in authoritarian contexts and, in particular, whether protest and voting are viewed as an efficacious way to engage in the political process among opposition members. We used an online survey ( N = 152), asked open‐ended questions about (1) motivators for voting, (2) reasons for not voting/indecisiveness, opinions on (3) voting, (4) offlin…
Researching identity in the imposed boundaries of a nation-state
We conducted three meta-analyses on 28 studies examining the role of ethnic and national identity in outgroup attitudes, perception of discrimination against Kurds, and support for minority rights within the context of Turkish–Kurdish conflict (e.g., state oppression against Kurds and Kurdish resistance in Turkey). Results revealed a negative relationship between identity and outgroup attitudes. The role of identity in perceived discrimination an…
The impact of authoritarian regimes on research
Many global contexts have been experiencing a rise in authoritarianism over the past decade. Conducting research on sensitive topics is challenging in general, but doing research in especially authoritarian political contexts is even more difficult. In this article, we take Turkey as a case where the political environment has made conducting social psychological research on sensitive topics such as the Turkish–Kurdish conflict difficult. We utili…
The Making of a Movement (Together)
Drawing on the Social Identity Theory of Leadership, this study explores how Greta Thunberg's influence emerges through group processes where her leadership is sustained among climate activists by perceptions of one of us and doing it for us . Using a qualitative survey of 108 climate activists from the United Kingdom, Turkey and Sweden, we examine how these perceptions are constructed and maintained by climate activists across different socio‐po…
Wear it like armor and it can never be used to hurt you
Reappropriation has been discussed as an identity management strategy as a means to reevaluate oneself in a context that will not allow for large‐scale social change. There are, however, numerous examples of reappropriation of stigmatizing labels as connected to political movements. This research examines whether reappropriation of stigmatizing labels can function as a precursor to collective action. In Study 1, we conducted semi‐structured inter…
Ten years after the Gezi Park protests
The Gezi Park protests are a milestone for system-challenging collective action practices in Turkey. Now, ten years later, we look back on the protests and their legacy. While the protests started in May 2013 as a response to the Taksim Project, which aimed to remove Gezi Park, they brought together thousands of people, including many who were protesting for the first time, to voice their opposition to then Prime Minister Erdoğan and his policies…
The Affect, Context, and Target (ACT) Framework
Drawing on research from the past 30 years, this systematic and narrative review introduces the Affect, Context, and Target (ACT) Framework and synthesizes findings on how emotions shape collective action across different cultural and political contexts. Specifically, it examines the cultures and regimes studied, the types of emotions involved, their emotional targets, and the forms of collective action analyzed. Our systematic review ( N = 156 a…
The effect of common humanity on forgiveness and collective action does not generalise to all victim groups
Prior work has found that making common human identity salient increases forgiveness of perpetrators but reduces collective action intentions among victims of historical atrocities. We conducted three experiments to investigate the generalisability of this effect among Alevis—a religious minority found mainly in Turkey. Study 1 ( N = 222) found that the common human identity manipulation was unsuccessful and did not lead to differences in forgive…
Understanding the 2024 Summer Riots in the UK
The wave of riots in England in summer 2024 constituted the biggest wave of disorder in the country for more than a decade. These were followed by swift policy responses, based on assumptions about the events and the participants, before any detailed empirical investigation had been carried out. There is a need for detailed description of events as a solid basis for both social psychological theory and policy. This article therefore presents case…
Political science (19 obras) · Sociology (15 obras) · Psychology (13 obras) · Law (12 obras) · Politics (12 obras) · Social Psychology (12 obras) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (9 obras) · Law (8 obras) · Collective action (7 obras) · Social Psychology (7 obras)