Neşe Kaya Özkan

Neşe Kaya Özkan is a Linguistic Anthropology Ph.D. candidate in the School of Anthropology. She completed her B.A. in Foreign Language Education at Bogazici University in 2008. Nese received her first M.A. degree at the same university in Linguistics Program in 2011 with a thesis focusing on the ethnic identity formation of second and third generation Cretan immigrants whose ancestors were subjected to a population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1920s. For her second M.A. degree, which she received from Sabanci University in 2014 in Cultural Studies, Nese shifted her focus to the study of the culture, history, and language of Hemshin people living predominantly in northeastern Turkey. For her Ph.D. research, she will focus on ethnic and linguistic identity formation of Hemshin people: the language ideologies they hold as well as recently emerging language activism and their impact on the preservation and continuation of Hemshin language.