Doctoral Dissertation Research: Borderwork in Courtrooms: Documents, Oil, Smuggling in Eastern Turkey.

该项目将审查沿着土耳其-伊朗-伊拉克边境地区土耳其法院的石油走私案件。在这个主要由库尔德人居住的地区，石油走私已经成为土耳其军队和库尔德游击队之间三十年武装冲突造成的经济破坏的人们谋生的重要方式。该项目旨在了解在这个边境地区面临严密的军事监视和频繁的石油走私法庭案件的情况下，非法石油贸易的持续存在。PI将研究如何动员各种法律的论据，具有不同内容和有效范围的法院文件，以及石油的材料质量（例如，当走私石油与合法销售的石油混合时，难以标记走私石油）将走私案件框定为涉及有争议的理解，例如私人企业或犯罪活动。该项目将展示个人如何通过在法律的体系中建立替代偷运框架的有约束力的先例来改变合法的越境方式。在伊拉克和伊朗附近的城市中心专门从事石油走私案件的办公室的民族志工作将使研究人员能够进行参与观察，深入，半结构化，生活史访谈和法庭文件的文本分析。该项目将有助于边境地区的研究。该项目探讨了物品（即文件和石油）的物质性质如何影响社会和法律的进程，从而扩大了对法律的制度引起争议的做法的分析。该项目还将促进在分析和管理土耳其东部和其他地方的海关和边境保护方面采取动态方法。各国越来越关注保护边界的完整性，同时也促进法律的贸易。 这项研究将有助于了解这条线是如何在法律的论坛上公开竞争，有助于了解国家安全中的重大问题。

This project will examine oil smuggling cases in Turkish courts along the Turkish-Iranian-Iraqi borderland. In this region, which is mostly Kurdish-populated, oil smuggling has emerged as a substantial way of earning a living for people facing economic devastation wrought by three decades of armed conflict between the Turkish army and Kurdish guerillas. The project aims to understand the persistence of illegal oil trade in the face of intense military surveillance and frequent court cases about oil smuggling in this borderland. The PI will examine how the mobilization of various legal arguments, court documents with different content and scope of validity, and material qualities of oil (such as the difficulty of marking smuggled oil when it is mixed with legally marketed oil) frame smuggling cases as concerning contested understandings, such as private enterprise or criminal activity. The project will demonstrate how individuals alter legitimate ways of border crossing through binding precedents that establish alternative framings of smuggling in the legal system. Ethnographic work in offices specializing in oil smuggling cases in city centers near Iraq and Iran will allow the researcher to conduct participant-observation, in-depth, semi-structured, life history interviews, and textual analysis of court documents.The project will contribute to studies of borderlands. The project addresses how the material qualities of objects (i.e. documents and oil) influence social and legal processes, and thereby broadens its analysis of practices through which the legal system is contested. The project will also promote a dynamic approach in analyzing and administering the customs and border protection in eastern Turkey and elsewhere. States have become increasingly concerned with protecting the integrity of borders while also facilitating legal trade. This study will contribute to understanding how this line is open to contest in legal fora, contributing to understanding significant questions in national security.