Passing the Whiteness Threshold; That's All That Matters by Tugay Durak

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Yunus Emre Institute in London is delighted to host the new Young Scholar Seminar Series talk on "Passing the Whiteness Threshold; That's All That Matters. Experiences of Turkish Academics in the UK" with Tugay Durak.

While numerous studies underline the positive outcomes of an overseas experience for international academics, the other, darker side of the coin remains largely overlooked. Approaching the matter critically, scholars have begun to draw attention to the intrinsic meaning of mobility associated with the loss of stability, de-territorialization, and loss of fixed national identification. This is paired with widespread job instability as well as overt and covert forms of racism, xenophobia, and exclusion against mostly ethnic-minority migrant academics. However, there are several interacting factors, such as gender, ethnicity, and religiosity, that influence an academic's experiences overseas.

In this talk, Tugay Durak will discuss the experiences of Turkish academic staff while working at UK universities and how intersecting characteristics such as ethnicity, gender, and religiosity affect their overseas experiences. In this talk, Tugay Durak will report the Turkish academics who have the most positive experience in the UK are the ones who pass the 'whiteness threshold' based on forty-six interviews with Turkish academic staff working at UK universities. Those who cannot pass the threshold face discrimination, discomfort, and isolation.

Tugay Durak is a PhD candidate and postgraduate teaching assistant at IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, and he focuses on the Turkish academic diaspora in the UK. Last year, he worked at a British Council project aiming to promote higher education partnerships between Turkey and the UK. In 2019, he completed his master’s degree at the same institution about international scholarships for academic mobility. Before his postgraduate studies, Mr Durak had taught Mathematics in Istanbul for four years at the secondary level. He took his bachelor’s degree from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey.