Çağla Ay
Ph.D. Candidate in Department of Anthropology

Research Interests
critical agrarian studies, feminist decolonial/postcolonial science studies, political ecology, multi-sited ethnography
Biography
My doctoral dissertation focuses on an orange variety cultivated in southern Turkey, employing a transnational lens to uncover the discrepancies and inequalities embedded in its propagation and production. Through an ethnographic and historical lens, I analyze the intersecting articulations of state, science, and capital, with attention to the botanical properties of these oranges, and explore their socioeconomic implications for labor, place-making, and value on a transnational scale. Conducted across southern Turkey and Riverside, California, this research has been supported by the Mellon Decolonial Global Studies Fellowship, the Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT) Fieldwork Grant, the UMass Amherst Graduate School Predissertation Research Grant, and the UMass Amherst Departmental Predissertation Research Grant, among others. I hold both a BA and an MA in Sociology from Boğaziçi University, Turkey. I am happy to answer inquiries from prospective students.