Emine Fidan Elcioglu

Emine Fidan Elcioglu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology. She received a B.A. in economics and history from the University of Chicago in 2006 and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley in 2016. She currently teaches courses on critical migration studies, race, and qualitative research methods.

Professor Elcioglu’s research focuses on immigration political struggles as a way to explore the relationship between dominant and dominated groups; as well as the relationship between state and civil society under conditions of growing inequality. Most recently, she is the author of Divided by the Wall: Progressive and Conservative Immigration Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border (2020, University of California Press). Based on 20 months of immersive research, Divided by the Wall ethnographically mines the meanings of the contentious immigration debate for activists on opposite sides of the political spectrum. In particular, her book combines the insights of political sociology and race studies to shed light on why and how ordinary Americans collectively mobilize to change immigration and border policy--even when they don't necessarily believe that their actions will make a difference. 

Professor Elcioglu’s current research builds on her ongoing interest in how and why citizens mobilize around non-citizenship, and what their mobilization says about the societies they inhabit. Supported by the Connaught New Researcher Award from the University of Toronto, she is currently working on an interview-based project that explores the political experiences of private refugee sponsors in Canada.

Publications

Elcioglu, Emine Fidan. 2020. Divided By the Wall: Progressive and Conservative Immigration Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border. University of California Press. 

Elcioglu, Emine Fidan. 2017. “The State Effect: Theorizing Immigration Politics in Arizona.” Social Problems 64(2): 239-255.

Elcioglu, Emine Fidan. 2015. “Popular Sovereignty on the Border: Nativist Activism among Two Border Watch Groups in Southern Arizona.” Ethnography 16(4): 438-462.

Dorr, Noam, Emine Fidan Elcioglu, and Lindsey Gaydos (equal co-authors). 2014. “‘Welcome to the Border’: National Geographic’s Border Wars and the Naturalization of Border Militarization.” Working USA Special Edition: Film, Labor and Migration 17(1): 45-60.

Elcioglu, Emine Fidan. 2010. “Producing Precarity: The Temporary Staffing Agency in the Labor Market.” Qualitative Sociology 33: 117-136.