Youth Politics and Activism in Turkey

Media outlets and polling companies have started publishing reports that claim the young people’s vote will be a game-changer in the upcoming elections. It is Generation Z, the so-called millennials, who are going to make a political statement with their vote in the Turkish elections. They constitute a sizeable portion of the eligible voters (20%) and around half of them will be casting their votes for the first time (RIS Report, 2022). Whether we are talking about Generation X, Y or Z, young people do not constitute a monolithic bloc in Turkey. The country is polarised along different ethnic, religious and ideological fault lines, and so is its youth. This is reflected in their activism, as well as their everyday lives. Turkish youth became an object of scrutiny for researchers during and after the Gezi protests and their repertoires of action and political participation were analysed by researchers both in and outside Turkey. However, new systematic studies are needed if the results the polling companies are receiving with regard to young people’s preferences and lifestyle choices in a changing Turkey are to be explained. Evidence shows that wooing youth support features on the parties’ political agendas. Strategies include investing in youth branches, organising events and festivals, as well as creating opportunities for young people, to keep them loyal to the party agendas. Do young people only express their frustration with the system through demonstrations on the streets or social media posts? No: young people are also leaving the country in protest. My recent research reveals that a sizeable group of young people tend to plan for futures outside Turkey, and that they would take any opportunity that presented itself abroad in order to leave the country permanently or temporarily

"They Hear Us but They Do not Listen to Us”: Youth Narratives on Hope and Despair in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Most of the recent academic literature has focused on the macro politics of the Kurdish situation within Iraq and there is little scholarship about the younger generation of Kurds coming of age during the autonomous Kurdish rule. Unlike their forebears, they have no direct memory of the decades-long repression campaigns. For them, the history starts with the inception of a semi-autonomous Kurdish enclave and de facto self-rule after the first Gulf War in 1991. Studying ‘Generation 2000’, the Kurdish millennials who came of age in the aftermath of the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 offers vital insights into the dynamics of a region that experienced great socio-political transformation

Understanding the cultural landscape value of traditional agrarian landscapes of African Sahara Desert: The case of Timimoun, Algeria

In 1992, the World Heritage Convention became the first international legal instrument recognize cultural landscapes as a human heritage that must be protected.  The Cultural Landscape - Past, Present and Future considers different aspects of man's intervention with natural vegetation and the landscape resulting from a long equilibrium of co-existence. These landscapes are not stable, and the recent and ever accelerating changes in technology and life-style have increasingly affected many ancient landscapes, as old land-use practices are abandoned and traditions forgotten.(Birks et al., 1988) Human communities in desert areas formed a special landscape, providing these cultural landscapes within a special ecosystem of sustainable living conditions, which helped to create many social, economic, and cultural systems in addition to preserving biodiversity.  Unfortunately, the cultural landscape in the African desert is constantly deteriorating under the influence of urban, economic, and social changes. In the southern Algerian Timimoun city of is one of the most important global desert touristic destination due to the natural cultural landscape characterizes it, but unfortunately this landscape in continuous deterioration. Agricultural landscapes of desert environment, with its remarkable knowledge culture and world of practices, must be seen as a living library where this knowledge is transferred from generation to generation. It seems certain that we will need more of the know-how stored in this living library in the near future, especially considering the effects of climate change we are experiencing today. The paper aims to identification of cultural landscapes in the oasis and analyses transformation and change in cultural landscape and traditional green infrastructure elements by relying on a historical analysis of spatial images based on quantitative analysis using ArcGIS software with the aim of identifying the real reasons of this deterioration in the urban cultural landscape in desert cites we will propose an action strategy to prevent this degradation.    &nbsp

Neue Strategien für die verbesserte Exprimierung von rekombinanten Säuger Proteinen in modifizierten Säugerzelllinien

The elucidation of protein structures provides a valuable insight into the diverse functions of cellular processes. However the field of structural biology faces some major bottlenecks. The production of adequate amounts of high quality protein, particularly for complex mammalian targets can be a demanding process. In such cases the use of mammalian expression hosts is favourable to the widely used prokaryotic systems due to their capability to process the most genuine post-translational modifications and employ proper protein folding mechanisms. The generation of stable mammalian cell lines for recombinant protein production enables the robust expression in various settings from small scale batch cultures to large scale bioreactors. Stable cell line development however is a very time intensive process that requires extensive screening for high producer clones after random integration of the gene of interest into the host genome. Another challenge structural biologists are confronted with are complex heterogeneous glycosylation pattern on the protein surface. These interfere in proper crystal formation and thus diffraction analysis. The use of glycosylation mutant cell lines such as CHO Lec3.2.8.1, that express a uniform glycosylation profile of the high mannose type (GlcNAc2Man5), address this problem. To improve the soluble expression of recombinant proteins various strategies can be pursuit. This includes the expression of truncated and chimeric constructs as well as the co-expression of multi protein complexes and molecular chaperones. In this work the glycosylation deficient cell line CHO Lec3.2.8.1 was used to create a fast method to generate stable producer cell lines that co-express target genes at pre characterized chromosomal loci. Binary CHO Lec3.2.8.1 master cell lines, stably tagged with two different exchange cassettes comprising fluorescent marker genes, were established during this work. Targeted integration of recombinant genes into these pre defined genomic loci using recombinase mediated cassette exchange (RMCE), based on the Flp/FRT system, enables the fast generation of stable producer cell lines with predictable expression properties. This binary system was used to generate producer cell lines for the expression of Toll-like receptor ectodomains in combination with molecular chaperones.Die Aufklärung von Proteinstrukturen liefert wertolle Einblicke in die vielfältigen Funktionen zellularer Prozesse. Jedoch müssen bestimmten Herausforderungen gemeistert werden um Proteine Struckturbiologisch analysieren zu können. Die Produktion von adequaten Mengen an kristallisierbarem Protein stellt sich vor allem für komplexe Zielproteine aus Säugetieren als mühsam dar. In solchen Fällen ist die Verwendung von Säugetierzelllinien von Vorteil. Mechanismen für die korrekte Faltung von Proteinen und die Fähigkeit posttranslationale Modifikationen durchzuführen sind in Säugetierzelllinien gegeben. Die Herstellung von stabilen Zelllinien für die rekombinante Proteinproduktion ermöglicht die robuste Expression in einer Reihe von Set-ups: vom kleinen Maßstab in Batch-Kultur bis hin zu größeren Maßstäben in Bioreaktoren. Stabile Zellliniengenerierung ist jedoch ein sehr zeitaufwendiger Prozess. Sie erfordert eine extensive Analyse und Charakterisierung von hochproduzierenden Zellklonen nach der zufälligen Integartion eines Transgenes in die Wirtszelllinie. Darüber hinaus stellen komplexe heterogene Glycanstrukturen auf der Proteinoberfläche die nächste Herausforderung dar. Diese beeinträchtigen Proteinkristallisation und Diffraktion. Mutante Zelllinien wie z.B. CHO Lec3.2.8.1 ermöglichen die Expression von Proteinen mit einer homogene GlcNAc2Man5 Glycanstruktur. Um die lösliche Expression von rekombinanten Proteinen zu fördern können verschiedene Strategien angewandt werden. Beispielsweise die Expression verkürzter oder chimerer Konstrukte alswohl die Co-expression von Multiproteinkomplexen oder molekularer Chaperone. In dieser Arbeit wurde die glykosylierungsdefizente Zelllinie CHO Lec3.2.8.1 genutzt um ein schnelles und flexibles System für die Herstellung von stabilen Zelllinien zu etablieren, welche die Co-expression von Zielproteinen in bereits charakterisierten chromosomalen Loci ermöglicht. Dieses binäre System enthält stabil integrierte Austauschkassetten welche die zielgerichtete Integration von Transgenen ermöglichen. Hiermit wird die zügige Herstellung von Produktionszelllinen mit vorhersehbaren Expressionseigenschaften gewährleistet. Dieses binäre System wurde genutzt um Produktionszelllinien für die Co expression von Toll-like Rezeptor Ectodomainen in Kombination mit Chaperonen zu generieren

La diaspora kurde d’Irak au Royaume-Uni

On estime entre 2 et 3 millions le nombre de Kurdes résidant en dehors de leur terre d’origine, la plupart ayant fui les persécutions sous les différents régimes qui se sont succédé en Turquie, Iran, Irak et Syrie. Bien qu’ils forment la plus grande diaspora d’apatrides au monde, ils restent relativement peu connus. Or, dans le monde globalisé qui est le nôtre, les diasporas, en tant que protagonistes non étatiques, sont à même d’influencer les politiques de leur pays d’origine et de leur pay..

Positive and negative diaspora governance in context: from public diplomacy to transnational authoritarianism

The diaspora studies literature recently has indicated an expansion in state-led diaspora engagement initiatives and burgeoning diaspora governance institutions around the world. Home states have correlated concepts such as public diplomacy and soft power with these nascent incentives to cultivate and mobilize diasporas for state interests. Despite the interpretation of these developments as the expansion of citizenship rights for the diaspora and their systematic incorporation back into the home nation, some authors remain skeptical about the multifaceted motives behind such initiatives. Authoritarian states particularly employ diaspora governance as a mechanism to monitor and control diaspora groups, which home communities perceive as dissidents. Using Turkey and its recent diaspora governance policy as a case study, this article demonstrates that diaspora governance enables the state to create, depending on the context, potentially ideological and repressive transnational state apparatuses that can assume both positive and negative forms