Ozlem Ilyas Savk

PhD Candidate in Sociology

Research Interests:

Sociology of work and education, labour studies, youth studies, affect theories

Email:

Ozlem.Ilyas-Savk@warwick.ac.uk

Profile

Özlem İlyas Şavk is an ESRC funded full-time PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Warwick. She is researching higher education experiences of students working in non-graduate jobs alongside their studies at public and private universities in Istanbul, Türkiye. Using qualitative methods, she investigates how students-workers' experiences in the spaces of work and HE potentially shape their conceptions and aspirations related to both domains over time. The research aims to elucidate the impact of an incremental privatisation of HE financing in the country on the reproduction of both student lives and selves.

Previously, Özlem completed an MA in Sociology at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. Her MA research on the emerging spaces, discourses and experiences of freelancing in Türkiye was published as a book in Turkish in 2022 (available hereLink opens in a new window).

Özlem's doctoral project is supervised by Dr Lynne Pettinger and Dr Gaby Atfield.

Publications

• İlyas, Ö. (2023) A place in the World: A mapping of coworking as a site/practice of commoning and community in Istanbul. In: Merkel, J., Avdikos, V. & Pettas, D. eds. Coworking: Alternative topologies and transformative potentials, Berlin: Springer.
• İlyas, Ö. (2022) Freelance Emek: Ofissiz Çalışmanın Sınıfsallığı [Freelance Labour: Classing Officeless Work], Istanbul: İletişim Publishing House.

Selected presentations

In English:

• İlyas, Ö. (2025) Public university dormitories as affective pedagogical infrastructures in Türkiye. Materiality, Space and Signs in Higher Education, 27 June 2025, University of Warwick, UK.
• İlyas, Ö. (2022) Work fits home?: Remote and freelance working during the Covid-19 outbreak. Historical Materialism Istanbul Conference, 15-17 April 2022, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Türkiye.
• İlyas, Ö. (2022) Organizing the officeless: Class antagonism and politics of freelancing. International Labour Process Conference, 21-23 April 2022, Padua, Italy.
• İlyas, Ö. (2021) Encountering in space: Transition from a common to a community of freelancers in Istanbul, RC21 Conference: Sensing the City, 14-16 July 2021, University of Antwerp, Belgium.

In Turkish:

• İlyas, Ö. (2024) Öğrenci siyasetinin dönüşen dinamikleri: KYK eylemlerinde ahlâki ile siyasi olanın ihtilaflı etkileşimi [Changing dynamics of student politics: contested interaction of the moral and the political in KYK protests]. Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi Sosyoloji Konferansı, 3-7 December 2024, Istanbul, Türkiye.
• İlyas, Ö. (2023) Freelance Emek: Ofissiz Çalışmanın Sınıfsallığı

  [Freelance Labour: Classing Officeless Work]. Yeditepe Üniversitesi Sosyoloji Bölümü Sosyal Bilimler Kolokyumu, 3 April 2023, Istanbul, Türkiye.

Awards

• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) PhD studentship (2023-2027)
• Best MA dissertation prize across the master programs in the Department of Sociology, University of Warwick (2024)