Dr Oznur Yardimci

Profile

Biography

I am a postdoctoral research fellow at the Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre (VP-RC) at the University of York. I have an interdisciplinary background in Sociology (PhD, 2018), Political Science (MSc, 2012) and International Relations (BSc, 2009).

Before I joined the VP-RC, I was a Co-investigator (together with Dr Daryl Martin) in an internally-funded Fragments of Citizenship in Faith Landscapes project (2021-2022) that explored objections to mosque planning applications in the city of York acting as a broker in reshaping national identity.  

In 2020-2021, I held an ESRC White Rose DTP Postdoctoral Fellow (CEL Pathway) in the Department of Sociology. In 2020, I worked in the multi-national collaboration Citizenship Futures - The Politics of Hope, as the lead researcher in the London case study. 

Publications

Selected publications

• Rokem, J., Yardımcı, Ö., Gentile, M., & Weinstein, L. (2026). Bringing nationalism into global urban studies. Urban Studies, 0(0).  
• Yardımcı, Ö., and Martin, D. (2024). Fragments of citizenship: contested mosque architecture in the North of England. City, 28(3–4), 539–555.
• Yardımcı, Öznur (2023). Drawing the boundaries of ‘good citizenship’ through state-led urban redevelopment in Dikmen Valley. European Urban and Regional Studies, 30(3), 235-247.
• Yardımcı, Ö. (2020) State stigmatization in urban Turkey: Managing the ‘insurgent’ squatter dwellers in Dikmen Valley, Antipode, Volume 52 (5): 1519-1538.   
• Yardımcı, Ö. (2020) Anatomy of a right to shelter struggle in an authoritarian regime: Dikmen Valley, Radical Housing Journal, 2(2): 235-242.   

Research

Research

My research spans across sociology, urban studies and political geography by exploring the role cities play in mediating nation-building both from below and above. My PhD research on Ankara (Turkey) exposed how state-led urban interventions enabled realigning the 'desired nation' with populist and authoritarian visions. My postdoctoral research dwells on and extends this research by exploring how right-wing populist, authoritarian nationalism is enacted and negotiated by cities including municipal-level actors as well as marginalised groups.  

I am a member of RGS‑IBG Political Geography Research Group and the Centre for Urban Research (CURB) at York.