Feminist Asylum: A Journal of Critical Interventions

Feminist Politics, Feminist Asylum

Feminist Asylum Editorial Collective — 2025-07-18

Editorial notes for the fourth issue.

Theorizing the Field, Fielding the Theory

Simten Cosar — 2025-07-18

This article speaks to three distinct—but related—sites of encounter with the political: The first site concerns the field research with feminist academics that has spanned to more than four years, which I conducted in different countries. It is still in the making. The second site relates to contemporary political theory, and the lack of attention to theorizing politics in crisis times and/or regime transitions, displayed either by the rush to model the existing government here-and-now or by sheer silence, putting at risk the capacity to "remember and communicate the political experience" (Wiessberg, 1997, p. 21). The third site is about bringing in micro- politics of everyday life into political theory. In this manuscript, I try to point at a means of doing so—through everyday conversation. I consider these sites as signifying the loss of meaning in the political (both in terms of political practices and reading these practices) in times of crisis, accompanying the increase in the frequency and degree of violence in institutional politics, and in everyday social interactions.² Here, I try to explore the possibilities for a politically engaged theorizing that prioritizes (historical) meaning over (speedy and assembly-line) model- making in explaining the political here-and-now. In so doing, I refer to bringing in everyday politics as storied in the accounts of citizens-as-actors. I argue that political theory offers the medium for turning the stories of political actors into narrations for shedding light on the structure that ties seemingly incidental, and thus divided moments in transition. My argument is that in contemporary versions of crisis—the crisis of neoliberal capitalism—everyday life offers one a space to connect her/his concerns with the politics of theorizing and the theoretical-as-embedded in the political experience.

Leaving the Body, Leaving the Country

Işıl Bayraktar — 2025-07-09

In this article, I focus on a woman’s experience with migration from Turkey to Japan for Ph.D. studies and the journey she continues after the breast cancer diagnosis upon return to Turkey. I try to narrate both experiences with a view to collective feminist story-telling, not only as a form of writing but also as a means for healing.

Dystopia of the Modern

Simten Cosar — 2017-02-01

In this article, we offer an intergenerational discussion on the pros and cons of autoethnography with a view to the dynamics of neoliberal universities.

Something Evergreen Called Life

Rania Mamoun — 2025-07-18

Poem by Rania Mamoun on women and exile.

For You

Hilal Barbay — 2025-07-18

Poem by Hilal Barbay

Meditation in the City Garden

Nafia Akdeniz — 2025-07-18

Poem by Nafia Akdeniz.

Solidarity for Peace, Peaceful Solidarity

Aslı Alpar — 2025-07-18

Alpar’s art for solidarity and peace.

Letter from inside

Zeki Bayhan — 2025-07-18

Zeki Bayhan's letter from prison.

Making My Own Garden

Işıl Eğrikavuk — 2025-07-18

This article presents the other garden, a practice-based, research-led artistic initiative I launched together with my students at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) in 2021 to create an interdisciplinary, inclusive, and ecological learning space. Motivated by personal experiences of exclusion within institutional frameworks, the project reclaims visibility for marginalized voices—human and non-human alike—through artistic and collaborative practices. It explores how artistic research can intersect with ecology, care, and diversity to rethink academic environments. The garden acts as both metaphor and method, integrating theory and practice, and positioning alternative pedagogies at the heart of social and environmental change.

A Letter to You and Them

Şafak Altan — 2025-07-18

Letter from outside to the inside.

I Create to Heal

Nalan Soyarık Şentürk — 2025-07-18

Nalân’s handicraft to heal.

Until We Break All Cages

Dilek Ciğerdelen — 2025-07-18

A commentary on the intersectionality between feminism and veganism.