About Dr Burcu Cevik-Compiegne's Fellowship research

Dr Burcu Cevik-Compiegne's Fellowship project, Turkish-Australian transnational life writing explores Turkish-language sources in the National Library's collections to uncover different forms of life writing produced in Australia following the Labour Migration Scheme between Turkey and Australia in 1967.

Writing was an impulse to process and record lived experience for many people, but beyond this function at an individual level, writing was a community-building strategy that connected Turkish-speaking people within Australia and across the borders. While people were writing about their struggles, they were also building their strengths.

Dr Cevik-Compiegne's research gives us key insights into outward and inward-looking reflections and aspirations of communities that shaped contemporary Australia and that were shaped by Australian politics and everyday multiculturalism. Her lecture will present a thematic overview of the material and its potential to inspire future research.

About Dr Burcu Cevik-Compiegne

Dr Burcu Cevik-Compiegne is a lecturer at ANU Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies as the Convenor of Turkish Studies.

Her research focuses on the social and cultural legacies of the First World War and politics and practices of remembrance of the war in post-imperial and postcolonial nations. Her research uncovers intercultural experiences of the war and its current memorialisation among diasporas in Australia. Her current research explores Turkish diasporic life writing.

Dr Cevik-Compiegne has strong interest in diasporic memory and identity and cross-cultural studies.