Specific Areas of Focus
anthropology of music, critical ethnography, existential anthropology, intersectional theory.
Şebnem Altunkaya is a research fellow and a PhD candidate at ifeas. After completing her BA degree in North American Studies in Turkey with an interdisciplinary focus on different subjects (including political science, philosophy and sociology), she moved to Germany in 2017. She completed her Master’s degree in the same subject at Georg-August University, Göttingen in 2020. She is currently doing research in the anthropology of music and her dissertation project deals with a cultural and political understanding of Anatolian Psychedelic Rock music from Turkey since the 1960s. She is a member of the Anthropology of Music Research Group at ifeas, where she is investigating personal and political expression through music and how the dimensions of musical movements (cultural symbols, lyrical expression, concert environments and stage personas) contribute to meaning making and the collective understanding of identity. She has recently worked as a production coordinator and academic consultant for an Anatolian Rock documentary project with the France 3 via Stella channel.