Asli Zengin

Asli Zengin

Biography

Asli Zengin is a fifth year PhD student in both the Anthropology Department and the collaborative program in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto. Her doctoral work focuses on the relationship between intimacy and state power in Turkey. She investigates the intimate relations between representatives of the State (police, doctors, lawyers, etc) and trans people who work in the sex trade and/or seek sex change operations. Paying close attention to the legal codes and regulations surrounding sex change operations and sex work in Turkey, Asli Zengin investigates the ways in which the Turkish State seeks to regulate sexuality and intimacy, and describes the ways in which trans women respond to these processes in their everyday lives. She is the author ofIktidarın Mahremiyeti: İstanbul’da Hayat Kadınları, Seks İşçiliği ve Şiddet [Intimacy of Power: Women Prostitutes, Sex Work and Violence in İstanbul] (Metis Yayınevi: İstanbul, 2011).