Hayal Akarsu

Dr. Hayal Akarsu is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology in the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University's Social and Behavioural Sciences faculty. She joined Utrecht University in 2021 after serving as a Junior Research Fellow at Brandeis University's Crown Center for Middle East Studies (2018-2021) and as a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Brandeis University (2020-2021).

Her academic journey includes:

• PhD in Anthropology from the University of Arizona (2018)
• MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from New York University (2012)
• BA in Cultural Studies from Sabanci University (2006, valedictorian)

Dr. Akarsu's research focuses on the intersections of policing, security, and governance, particularly in the context of Turkey and the Middle East. Her work explores how police reforms, despite intentions to reduce violence, often become tools for authoritarian regimes to extend power and manufacture legal impunity. She examines the "afterlives" of police reforms, showing how officers adopt transnational reform standards to redefine violence as professional expertise, becoming what she terms "force experts." Her research spans multiple domains including digital policing, environmental crimes, and the politics of security in open societies.

Her publications reveal a consistent focus on understanding how transnational flows of policing practices interact with local contexts to reshape everyday experiences of security and control. She brings together the anthropology of expertise with techno-political governance to offer critical insights into populist authoritarianism and security studies. Her work frequently addresses the tension between reform efforts and the persistence of state violence, particularly against marginalized communities.

Dr. Akarsu has received several prestigious awards and fellowships:

• Chair's Lecture Prize, Department of Anthropology, Rice University (2020-2021)
• Junior Research Fellowship, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University (2018-2021)
• Wenner-Gren Foundation, Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (2015-2016)
• Dissertation Writing Grant, Graduate College, University of Arizona (2017-2018)

As an educator, Dr. Akarsu creates inclusive learning environments that make social science tools relevant to diverse student backgrounds. At Utrecht University, she co-teaches an MA course on Security, Violence and Sovereignty and supervises graduate students. Previously at Brandeis University, she taught graduate seminars on the anthropology of policing, militarization, and surveillance, as well as undergraduate courses on Middle Eastern cultures and power dynamics. She has advised numerous undergraduate and graduate students throughout her career and serves on the Board of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (2020-2023).

Her current research projects include "Force Experts: Afterlives of Police Reforms in Turkey," which examines how police reforms become security technologies that extend governmental power, and "Green Criminology: Politics of Environmental Crimes," which investigates how environmental justice groups articulate claims against state and corporate dispossession through legal frameworks.