Dr Cigdem Esin
Senior Lecturer
Social Sciences
Cigdem Esin is senior lecturer in Psychosocial Studies and co-director of the Centre for Narrative Research. Her research interests are in narrative methodologies, interconnections between power networks and life stories, migrant and refugee narratives, and visual storytelling.
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EB 1.52, Docklands Campus
University of East London
School of Social Sciences
Docklands Campus
London
E16 2RD - C.Esin@uel.ac.uk +442082234280
Cigdem Esin is a senior lecturer in Psychosocial Studies and co-director of the Centre for Narrative Research. Her research interests are in interactions between individual stories and grand socio-cultural narratives within historically specific contexts, narrative methodologies, migrant and refugee narratives and visual storytelling. She has listened to and analysed narratives of mostly women in various research studies on gender, employment, women's movements and organisations, sexual health of young people and sexuality. She worked in a feminist information and communication centre before she pursued her passion for research.
Cigdem's work on visual narratives explores the possibilities that visual storytelling and multimodal narratives could offer for an in-depth understanding of life stories within multilayered, transcultural and multilingual contexts.She uses a Foucauldian approach to narratives to explore the power relations surrounding individual and public narratives. She worked with a small group of young British-Muslim women in East London as part of this ongoing methodological project. She also facilitated projects in the Calais refugee camp and London, together with Aura Lounasmaa and Corinne Squire. Cigdem is a member of the academic team running OLIve (Open Learning Initiative for refugees and Asylum Seekers) at UEL.
Overview
I facilitated ‘Creating multimodal narratives with refugees’ projects together with Corinne Squire and Aura Lounasmaa. The initial project was supported by the UEL’s impact fund. It involved photography and visual storytelling workshops with the residents of the Calais refugee camp. The project continues as part of OLIve (Open Learning Initiative for Refugees and Asylum Seekers) at UEL.
I am a member of MigART, together with Corinne Squire. This is a network of researchers using creative and collaborative methods in migration research.
https://migart.bard.berlin
I organise the annual graduate conference 'To Think is To Experiment' at CNR. Postgraduate students and early career researchers from various institutions and countries participate into this event. https://www.uel.ac.uk/schools/social-sciences/our-research-and-engagement/research/centre-for-narrative-research/to-think-is-to-experiment
Selected Conference Presentations and Workshops
- ‘In interaction with refugee-storytellers: exploring relationality and mobility in storytelling presented in Narrative Matters 2018 in July 2018.
- ‘Ethical complexities of Working with Refugees and Refugee Narratives’, together with Aura Lounasmaa, Queen’s University Belfast, September 2018 (invited workshop)
- Creative spaces of resistance in narratives by refugees’, together with Aura Lounasmaa in Narrative and Memory: Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics” Fiction and Facts in Narratives of Political Conflict (Symposium in Narrative and Memory: Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics network), Norway https://narrativeandmemory.com/kristiansand-2018/
- 'We were both immigrants but in a different way': An analysis of narratives of Turkish and Iranian academic migrants living in London, presented at International Society for Political Psychology Annual Conference, July 2016.
- ‘Understanding life stories in a transnational context through a multimodal narrative approach’ presented at UEL Social Sciences Conference, London, November 2015.
- 'Looking into the moments of resistance in sexual narratives', presented at BSA conference, Glasgow, April 2015.
- 'Telling stories in the picture', presented at Narrative Matters, Paris, June 2014.
- 'Space in the picture: Reflections on research with youth in East London' (together with Corinne Squire), presented at Radical Space, London, October 2013.
- 'Narratives of Re-politicing Selves', presented at Narrative Matters: Life and Narrative, Paris, June 2012.
- 'Disciplined Negotiations: Listening to Sexual Stories of Educated Women in Ankara’, Invited Seminar, Hacettepe University, Women’s Research and Implementation Centre, Ankara, April 2011
- 'Visual Autobiographies from East London and their destinations' together with Corinne Squire, presented at The Travelling Concept of Narrative II, International and Interdisciplinary Symposium, London, November 2010.
- Disciplined Femininities, Sexual Armours: Telling Stories beyond Modernist National Narratives presented at ISA World Congress of Sociology, Gothenburg, July 2010.
Collaborators
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Research
Publications
- 'Creating multimodal narratives in the Calais camp' project (together with Aura Lounasmaa and Corinne Squire). University of East London's Impact Fund. April-July 2016.
- NCRM International Visitor Exchange Scheme (IVES) (CNR project, together with Corinne Squire and Molly Andrews). November 2016.
Funding
Narrative Methodologies
Interconnections between power networks and narrativesVisual Storytelling, Multimodal Narratives
Migrant and Refugee Narratives
Life Stories in Transnational, Multilingual Contexts
Narratives of translation within research practiceInterests
Portfolio
Cigdem teaches in Psychosocial Theory and Practice BA Programme.
PS 5001 Research and Reflective Practice
PS 5005 Psychosocial Approaches to Constructions of Difference
PS 6000 Dissertation Module
She supervises PhD students, is Deputy Chair of the School Research Degrees Sub-Committee and a member of School Research Ethics Committee.
Current PhD Students
Bayan Karimi, 'The (gendered) experiences of Kurdish women activists in Kurdish Movement(s) in Iran-1979-1999'.
Masiha Vaala, 'Sites, Places and Spaces in Re(imaging): Iranian Youth and Traumas of the Past'.
Psychosocial Theory and Practice