Celal Özkızan

Celal Özkızan was born and raised in Northern Cyprus. He obtained his undergraduate and master studies in Ankara (Turkey) at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration in Middle East Technical University. The title of Celal's master's thesis is "Economic Policy Preferences of Turkish Cyriot Business Groups in the Post-2004 Process in Northern Cyprus".

Research

Thesis Title: 'Neoliberalism in a Small Country: Social Structures, Property Ownership and Class Structure in Northern Cyprus'

Neoliberalism has changed the material basis of social reproduction in most contemporary societies. It has taken various shapes in different cases and studying each and every case both helps us to enrich our comprehension towards neoliberalism and to problematise the dominant epistemological frameworks within which neoliberalism has been analysed.

Northern Cyprus has been experiencing the neoliberal phenomenon since mid 1980s. Northern Cyprus has many exceptional features such as the unrecognized status of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), barriers to investment due to the property issue apropos of Cyprus Problem, lack of integration with the world markets and the problems with regards to the autonomy of TRNC state vis-a-vis the Turkish state. Moreover, there is an exceptionally prevalent small property ownership, which is the most important component of social structure in Northern Cyprus.

Ownership of small properties generates alternative sources and means of livelihood other than selling the labour power. Furthermore, the fact that significant proportion of small property owners are at the same time wage-labourers in Northern Cyprus has led to the formation of dual character of labour process.

In this respect, thesis investigates the significance of small property ownership within the social structure of Northern Cyprus, its implication upon the social reproduction, its relation with the wage labour, its transformation within the neoliberal context and finally the class significance of small property ownership.

PhD supervision

• Principal supervisor: Alfredo Saad Filho
• Secondary supervisor: Mayssoun Sukarieh

Further details

See Celal's research profile