BARIS CAYLI messina, PhD
A Social and Cultural CritiC
ABOUT ME
I received my training and education in Turkey, the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. My familial history and outlook on life have conditioned me to embrace cosmopolitan values founded on equality and justice. I am broadly interested in social, political, cultural, and legal issues in which human behavior, collective action, and dissent, along with their different consequences, provide us with a complicated panorama and conundrum that must be resolved, debated, and even sometimes refuted. In my research projects, I have sought to explore the origins and consequences of crime, conflict, violence, injustice, inequality, cultural transitions, political and social movements. You can have access to the outputs of my research projects and download them from this website. My research program aims to demystify complicated local and global processes in order to foster positive changes in the communities and to have a significant impact on people's lives.
As a social and cultural critic, my research and approach to a range of issues incorporate strong critical perspectives, and I seek to challenge entrenched power hierarchies between communities, states, classes, cultures, sexes, races, and resources by exploring the disastrous consequences of injustice and inequality across time and space. This intellectual curiosity also prompted me to take a comparative and critical approach to formulating the research design of the subjects that I study.
As a gay man, I advocate for LGBTQ+ academics and mentor early-career scholars both individually and through the ISA's LGBTQA Caucus. Additionally, I am currently working with other colleagues to build a more organized way of mentoring and supporting early-career LGBTQ+ scholars more effectively in the UK, as well as serving as a positive role model for our community. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you are a member of the LGBTQ+ academic community needing help or mentorship. I am very pleased to mentor early-career researchers, such as PhD fellows and postdoctoral colleagues.
VISITING ACADEMIC POSTS AND RECOGNITIONS
Habiliation, Associate Professorship Certificate by the Catalan Ministry of Education, Catalonia, (Document no: 0233/1355/2018) (2018)
Visiting Professor (2019-2020), School of Law, University of LUMSA, Palermo
Visiting Professor (2018-2019), University of Palermo - Department of Culture and Society
Visiting Academic (2011) University of Oxford - Department of Sociology
Visiting Scholar (2011) Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Center for Law & Justice

EDUCATION
University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) - ISHSS Certificate (2006)
Bilkent University (Turkey)- BA in Political Science (2007)
University of Twente (Netherlands) - MSc in Public Administration (2008)
University of Camerino (Italy) - PhD in Law, Politics and Social Sciences (2012)
RESEARCH METHODS EXPERTISE
I have expertise in a number of empirical methods both in qualitative and quantitative data analysis. I have comprehensive knowledge in analytical data analysis in archival research, ethnography, methods in digital humanities, content analysis, and computer programmes for both qualitative and quantitative data. I have been recently interested in expanding my knowledge in AI, machine learning, and data visualisation.
Archival Research
Field Research
Digital Ethnography
Discourse Analysis
QDAMiner programme for Qualitative Data
Advanced Interview Techniques
Digital Methods in Humanities
Voyant Tools
NVivo
Web Scraping
Spatial Data Analysis
Automated Text Analysis
Data Visualization
Field Experiments
Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
Python
Bayesian Statistics
Time Series Analysis for Political and Social Sciences
Stata
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Functions in R
Simulations in R
Advanced Graphics in R
EDITORIAL BOARD ACTIVITIES
I am Editor-in-Chief of International Social Science Journal
I am editorial board member of
The Sociological Review (2021 November - onwards)
I am founding editorial board member of
Interdisciplinary Studies of the Mediterranean (2022 - onwards).
AFFILIATIONS
Royal Historical Society (Elected Fellow)
TSAS, Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society (Senior Research Affiliate)
Royal Society of Arts (Fellow)
Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) (Member)
The Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (Associate Researcher)
ECPR - Standing Group on Organised Crime (Steering Committee Member)
Academics Stand against Poverty (Member)
Council for the Defence of British Universities: CDBU (Member)