Tuna Ogut
Investigating the social, political, and economic forces that shape urban life and space, through ethnographic research in urban geography, political economy, and gender.
Investigating the social, political, and economic forces that shape urban life and space, through ethnographic research in urban geography, political economy, and gender.
My work focuses on the social, political, and economic forces that shape urban life and space. I investigate urban geography, political economy and gender, with ethnographic research in Turkey. I am grounded in and contribute to a range of fields, including critical infrastructure studies, urban political geography, trans geography, feminist theory, political theory, social movements, and authoritarian urbanism.
My doctoral research at the London School of Economics investigates access to politics as an issue of urban social infrastructure through the ethnographic study of trans people's political organising practices in Istanbul. This builds on previous fieldwork, a three-year immersive ethnography exploring how a trans and non-binary community of drag performers creates an urban place for expression and gender exploration, published in Gender, Place and Culture (Ogut et al., 2025).
I organise conferences, workshops, and roundtable events in applied ethics, political studies, analytical philosophy, architecture, and the broader social sciences as a board member at Poedat, an interdisciplinary academic society. My long-term goal is to continue producing knowledge that can positively impact the social life of the people I work with and about in meaningful ways.
My research sits at the intersection of urban geography, political economy, and gender — asking how marginalised communities build the material and social infrastructure to access political life in cities under authoritarian pressure.
Ethnographic study of trans people's political organising practices in Istanbul. Introduces 'trans infrastructures of organising' as an integrative framework that reconceptualises political participation as a geographical achievement materially assembled through networks of survival, affective memory, and intersectional institutional interfaces.
An ethnography of drag performance in Istanbul, drawing from feminist, queer, and trans geographical perspectives. Explores how a trans and non-binary performer community creates a place for expression and gender exploration through collective meaning-making.
Since 2018, I have organised and chaired 33+ academic events as a board member of Poedat — conferences, workshops, and seminars spanning applied ethics, political studies, analytical philosophy, gender, architecture, and the broader social sciences.
Collaborating with grassroots groups, socially-minded venues, and non-governmental organisations — bridging academic research with communities on the ground.
Poedat is a non-profit interdisciplinary social sciences society for researchers. Since 2018, I have served as a board member, organising and chairing academic events — conferences, workshops, seminars, and roundtable discussions — in fields spanning applied ethics, political studies, gender, architecture, analytical philosophy, art, and the broader social sciences.
These events bring together early-career and established researchers to engage in critical dialogue across disciplinary boundaries. The society fosters a collaborative environment where intellectual exchange takes place outside of conventional institutional frameworks, creating space for emerging and unconventional research.