Bilge Firat

Bilge Firat is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at The University of Texas at El Paso and serves as a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies.

Dr. Firat's research focuses on political anthropology with particular expertise in:

• Access and accountability through corridors of power
• Political negotiations during Turkey's EU integration process
• Energy transport infrastructures connecting Europe and Asia via Turkey
• Global logistics systems and their economic impacts

Her recent work analyzes how logistics infrastructure is paradoxically both driving economic globalization while being positioned as a solution to infrastructure deterioration caused by decades of deregulation. She examines this phenomenon across multiple geopolitical contexts including North America, Europe, China, and Turkey, suggesting these developments may reflect fundamental transformations in state authority and governance.

As an active contributor to Platypus (the CASTAC Blog), Dr. Firat engages with contemporary debates in the anthropology of science, technology, and computing.