The Politics of Archives in Turkey and related Geographies

Deadline for applications: 9 April 2026

L'Orientale and the Consortium for European Symposia on Turkey (CEST) present the 2026 CEST Summer School, dedicated to the theme “The Politics of Archives in Turkey and Related Geographies”. The programme offers a week-long theoretical and practical training focused on archives that preserve, organise, and disseminate materials related to the history of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey.

Preserving, cataloguing, organising, and granting — or restricting — access to documents, newspapers, and ephemera are distinctly political practices. If archives are to be considered “not as sites of knowledge retrieval but of knowledge production, as monuments of states as well as sites of state ethnography,” as Ann Laura Stoler has argued, we must adopt a critical approach that regards archives themselves, as well as practices of (des-)archiving, as objects of study. In contemporary Turkey and related geographies, struggles over archival access, classification, and digitisation are inseparable from broader debates about sovereignty, national history, identity claims, and the boundaries of permissible knowledge. Decisions concerning access and classification represent exercises of institutional sovereignty that shape which histories can be written and which remain marginalised.

In recent years, new collections have emerged or become accessible, while other archives and collections have been closed to the public. At the same time, numerous NGOs and private actors have developed alternative archiving practices. The digitisation of documents has also made thousands of items accessible remotely, sometimes creating an overabundance of certain sources to the detriment of other collections. The Summer School will examine how the availability of online documents shapes knowledge and research, as well as the limits and advantages of multimedia and transnational platforms for the preservation of digital materials. It will also consider how cataloguing practices and archival organisation, often shaped by heritage policies, can hinder research on minorities, marginalised subjects, and politically sensitive topics.

Beyond textual documents, archives also structure access to visual and oral history sources. The programme will therefore explore what these materials can tell us and how researchers can move beyond the sense of immediacy and the fascination often produced by aesthetically appealing sources. Taking these questions as its starting point, the Summer School will interrogate both the materiality and the politics of archiving across different institutional and cultural settings.

The Summer School has three objectives: The fi rst objective is to bring together young academics from Turkey and other countries in Europe to deepen the theoretical and empirical engagement with a wide spectrum of archival practices and challenges, with a focus on the (post-)Ottoman and Turkish contexts. The second objective is to equip participants with critical tools for navigating, analyzing, and problematizing archives and archiving practices—from the politics of access to the epistemology of cataloguing, from the circulation of digital sources to the biases of archival categorization. The third objective is to contribute to the participants’ skills development in the interrelated fi elds of writing and publishing, presentation and research funding. 

The program combines seminars, guided discussions, practical exercises, and visits (virtual or on-site) to diff erent types of archives, such as:

• institutional state archives
• private and family archives
• activist and community archives
• digital and multimedia archives

Graduate students (advanced MA students and PhD candidates) and junior academics (within fi ve years of completing their PhD) whose research closely aligns with the summer school’s theme (Ottoman and Turkish history, anthropology, political science, visual studies, memory studies, heritage studies, and related fi elds) are invited to apply.

A strong interest in archival methods and/or the political dimension of knowledge production is expected.

The one-week program includes:

• lectures by invited international scholars
• hands-on sessions with archival materials
• methodological workshops
• presentations by participants on their ongoing research
• excursions 
   

Applicants are required to apply with draft papers (see specifi cations below) related to the theme of the summer school which they will present, discuss, and develop during the school. They will also prepare a short PowerPoint-based presentation on their research.

Please submit your application as a single PDF fi le to cestws25@gmail.com by April 9, 2026. Add the subject line: "CEST 2026 Summer School Application – [Your Name]." 

• Letter of motivation (max. 2 single-spaced pages),
• Summary of your work in progress (500 words),
• Short CV (1 page), including contact details for two referees who may be contacted for references,
• Full CV (3–4 pages),
• Draft paper (2,000–6,000 words) relevant to the Summer School theme (this may be a thesis chapter, a draft for publication, or a research paper you wish to develop),
• Indication of previous participation in a CEST event.

Your application must include: A panel of Consortium members will review applications. Successful applicants will be notifi ed by April 30, 2026.

Participation in the Summer School is fully funded, covering accommodation and meals, as well as travel reimbursement of up to €350. Selected participants are expected to actively contribute to discussions, present their research, and fully participate in all sessions.

Scientific Committee
Yavuz Köse, Elise Massicard, Lea Nocera

Organizing Committee
Lea Nocera, Valentina Marcella

Administrative Secretariat
Riccardo Rosa

This Summer School is convened as part of the Consortium for European Symposia on Turkey (CEST), funded by Stiftung Mercator and administered by the Stockholm University Institute of Turkish Studies. Members of the Consortium are based at SciencesPo Paris, University of Vienna, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, University of Naples L’Orientale, Stockholm University, University of Copenhagen, and University of Deusto. CEST is also supported by the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program at Northwestern University.

Photo credit: Ahmet Polat