Baris Cayli Messina

Dr. Baris Cayli Messina serves as Associate Professor of Criminology at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lincoln. He holds significant editorial positions as Editor-in-Chief of the International Social Science Journal (Wiley publication with UNESCO origins) and founder/Book Series Editor of 'Temple Studies in Criminalization, History, and Society' with Temple University Press. Dr. Messina maintains affiliations as Senior Research Affiliate with TSAS and RUSI, and previously held a scholar-in-residence position at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity until end of 2024.

As a British-Italian-Turkish academic, Dr. Messina is recognized for his work as a social and cultural critic and advocate for feminist scholarship. His research centers on dismantling systemic injustices through examinations of crime, conflict, and violence across temporal and spatial contexts. His ethnographic work in Sicily on antimafia movements and comparative studies of urban marginalization in New York and Palermo represents significant contributions to criminological theory.

• Key Research Areas: Criminology, Social Justice, Historical Sociology, Cultural Anthropology of Protest, Environmental Injustice, Urban Marginalization
• Methodological Approaches: Ethnographic Research, Comparative Historical Analysis, Archival Studies, Visual Documentation

Dr. Messina's recent publications introduce innovative theoretical frameworks including 'justice-based power vacuums' to explain neighborhood deprivation and 'informative/transmissive rituals' to analyze collective resistance in post-traumatic societies. His work bridges disciplinary boundaries to address fundamental questions about power, inequality, and social transformation.

• Editorial Leadership: International Social Science Journal (Wiley), Temple Studies Book Series, The Sociological Review editorial board, I.S Mediterranean Studies founding editorial board

An openly gay academic, Dr. Messina provides voluntary mentorship to LGBTQ+ scholars while maintaining an active public intellectual presence through his personal website and social media, where he engages with contemporary social and political issues from a justice-oriented perspective.