Thinking with Ghosts: EUC-Supported Graduate Research at the 2025 AAA Annual Meeting

 

taken from AAA website

By Tuba Akin, graduate affiliated student at the European Union Center

With the support of the European Studies Graduate Student Conference Award, funded by the Comenius EU Center Student Support Fund through the European Union Center (EUC) at the University of Illinois, I had the opportunity to attend and present at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, held November 19–23, 2025, in New Orleans. As a third-year PhD student in Anthropology and an EUC-affiliated graduate student, this award provided essential support for participating in an international academic conference and sharing my research with a broader scholarly community.

The theme of the 2025 AAA Annual Meeting was “Ghosts,” which invited scholars to reflect on how histories, silences, and unresolved forms of violence continue to shape the present. The conference offered a rich intellectual space to think about absence, memory, and the lingering effects of racial and political formations—questions that closely resonate with my own research interests.

taken by the author herself

With this support, I delivered a flash presentation titled Hauntings of Racelessness: Epistemological Violence and Roma Political Agency in Turkey. In this presentation, I argue that the denial of race in Turkey operates as a form of epistemological violence that renders Roma political claims unintelligible, even as Roma communities continue to articulate political agency through alternative forms of memory, narration, and collective practice. For me, as an early-stage PhD student, this was my first time participating in a conference of this scale, and the experience was both exciting and deeply motivating. Presenting my work to an international audience, sharing ideas with scholars whose work I have engaged with through coursework and final papers, and receiving feedback in this setting was incredibly meaningful. Beyond faculty connections, it was equally valuable to meet doctoral students from different universities and countries working on related questions, reconnect with colleagues, and exchange ideas. Attending the conference in the middle of a demanding academic semester renewed my energy and motivation, reminding me why I am invested in this work and in the broader scholarly community it is part of.

taken by the author herself

The European Studies Graduate Student Conference Award supports MA and PhD students presenting research related to European Studies by providing partial reimbursement for conference-related expenses and encouraging scholarly exchange beyond the classroom. More detailed information about eligibility, application requirements, and deadlines is available on the EUC website here.

Participating in the 2025 AAA Annual Meeting with support from this award offered more than an opportunity to present research; it reinforced the importance of academic community, dialogue, and institutional support in sustaining graduate research, particularly during the most demanding stages of doctoral training.