BARIS CAYLI messina, PhD
A Social and Cultural CritiC
Dr Baris Cayli Messina
Welcome to my personal website!
I am a British-Italian-Turkish scholar. I would define myself as a social and cultural critic as well as a feminist scholar based on my moral principles and the need to create a just and peaceful society in which all forms of systemic inequality need to be eradicated. My pronouns are he/him/his.
I am Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Lincoln. I am Book Series Editor of Temple Studies in Criminalization, History, and Society which is published by Temple University Press. I am Editor-in-Chief of International Social Science Journal (Wiley). I held Visiting Professor and Fellowship positions at the University of Palermo, LUMSA University, the University of Oxford, and Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. I am Senior Research Affiliate of the TSAS, the Canadian Network for Terrorism, Security, and Society, and RUSI.
I am very happily married to Gioacchino Messina.
This personal website is intended to provide information about my works. To learn more about my research, teaching interests, publications, and current projects, please visit the related pages of this website. My media and public scholarship page and blog page contain posts, submission calls, and my views on current social, political, and cultural issues.
MY LATEST RESEARCH
BREAKING THE SILENCE ON FEMICIDE:
HOW WOMEN CHALLENGE EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE AND MALE VIOLENCE
Digital space has provided an important platform for women by enabling them to defy religious and patriarchal values while rendering their demands more visible in the public sphere. By analyzing the stories of 3349 murdered women, consulting 57 activist-published materials, studying 37 protest-focused videos, and using digital ethnography, this article explores Turkish women's struggles against femicide. I propose the emancipatory and democratizing counterpublics as an analytical concept to demonstrate how women challenge epistemic injustice and male violence. To this end, I investigate the struggles of women by studying their use of digital space as a means of breaking the silence on femicide, creating data, disseminating knowledge, and seeking justice. This article highlights the essential role of new media technologies in empowering vulnerable groups through the generation of new forms of knowledge, the formation of collective memory, and the elimination of epistemic injustice in opposition to the ruling authorities. The present study contributes to our knowledge of the sociology of epistemic injustice by demonstrating how digital space plays a limited but critical role in the efforts of activists living under authoritarian regimes to defend their fundamental rights to survive and prevent femicide, which has a devastating impact on the lives of millions of women.
Cayli Messina, B. (2022) "Breaking the Silence on Femicide: How Women Challenge Epistemic Injustice and Male Violence" The British Journal of Sociology 73(4): 859-884.
CRIME AND VIOLENCE ON THE MARGINS OF SOCIETY: HOW JUSTICE-BASED POWER VACUUMS CREATE DEPRIVED NEIGHBORHOODS
How have crime, conflict, and violence shaped the social structure of neighborhoods across diverse spatial and temporal landscapes in marginalised urban communities? To address to this central question, this study examines the socio-political dynamics of New York City and Palermo, as well as the role of authoritarian actors, by juxtaposing different historical periods and contrasting the influences of political institutions with extra-legal entities such as gangs and mafias. Utilising visual images, archival documents, and geographical mapping, the study introduces the concept of "justice-based power vacuums." This theoretical concept elucidates the mechanisms through which coercive power fosters social environments susceptible to extra-legal domination, effectively entrapping vulnerable groups, be they ethnic or racial minorities or economically disadvantaged groups. I argue that while crime and violence, especially under the auspices of gangs and mafias, often become the focal point, it is the obscured role of political authorities that stands as the genesis of such complex social problems. The present comparative historical social research indicates that recognizing and addressing these obscured political influences is essential for a holistic understanding and subsequent mitigation of the structural challenges in urban social life that create deprived neighborhoods across time and space and perpetuate marginalization in these communities.
Cayli Messina, B. (2024) "Crime and Violence on the Margins of Society: How Justice-Based Power Vacuums Create Deprived Neighborhoods" Sociology Compass 18(3): 1-24. e13194