Violent Intimacies

“An insightful analysis of the trans community of Istanbul and their relationship to the violence they face from the state, medical institutions, and their families. This must-read book makes an important contribution to understanding trans lives beyond North America and Europe.” - Afsaneh Najmabadi, author of Familial Undercurrents: Untold Stories of Love and Marriage in Modern Iran

“In this insightful exploration of the intricate dynamics between systemic violence and the resilience of trans people, Asli Zengin depicts with meticulous care the trans everyday lived amid cisheteronormativity, neoliberal governmentality, and authoritarian management of difference. With exquisite ethnographic sensibility and a profound understanding of the sociopolitical landscape of Turkey, Zengin provides a deep dive into the creative labor of trans and queer communities as they insist on imagining otherwise. The book is a must-read for anyone seeking to grasp the nuanced complexities, joy, and empowerment of trans lives and kin-making under conditions of intensifying state violence, familial abandonment, and death.”  - Ayse Parla, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Boston University

"With her book Violent Intimacies, Asli Zengin takes us on ethnographic journey into worlds largely hidden from many publics: trans communities in Turkey, and specifically in Istanbul. . . . A rich contribution to trans and gender studies in global perspective—and more." - Susan C. Pearce, Turkish Studies

"In this powerful second monograph, Zengin expands her far-reaching argument about the mutually formative relationship between intimacy and state violence, drawing on an extensive body of careful and detailed ethnographic fieldwork in the queer/trans districts and communities of Istanbul." - Sage Brice, Social & Cultural Geography

"Zengin’s work marks a significant intervention within trans studies. A uniquely interdisciplinary study, Violent Intimacies brings the field into generative conversation with urban geography, the political anthropology of violence, and transnational feminist and queer critique." - Avik Sarkar, Lateral

"Violent Intimacies eloquently captures Zengin’s years of active companionship with the transgender community and their activism in Istanbul. . . .  As such, Zengin’s timely book promises to ignite many future conversations on analytical and methodological approaches to the anthropology of queerness and transness in Turkey, the Middle East, and beyond." - Ali Yildirim, GLQ

"Asli Zengin’s monograph is a valuable from-the-field account of violence, intimacy, space, and state. Regardless of one’s regional speciality or theoretical focus, Zengin’s writing compels and educates about the everyday lives of people marginalised by a complex interplay of systems." - Peyton Cherry, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford