Academic Resistance and the Diaspora Against Authoritarianism in Erdoğan’s Turkey

Abstract

This article examines the process of democratic backsliding in Turkey and the systematic assault on university autonomy as part of an “authoritarian laboratory.” Through the lens of Ece Temelkuran and the mobilization of Academics for Peace, it analyzes how the regime has transformed academia into a space of ideological control through “civil death” and the criminalization of critical knowledge. The text integrates the genealogy of social protest in Turkey, highlighting the connection between the horizontal structure of Gezi and the structures of academic resistance in the diaspora, to propose that the university struggle constitutes a key front against authoritarianism. The analysis focuses on the AKP's hegemony strategies, the impact of the diaspora on the construction of a counter-narrative, specifically the Kurdish one and the resistance against the co-optation of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the double gender discrimination in exile.