Biography
I obtained my B.A in Archaeology and History of Art and my minor in International Relations at Koç University in Istanbul in 2016. Although I am mainly trained in Anatolian archaeology and heritage studies, I have always been fascinated by archaeological human remains.
To work more closely on human remains, I worked in several archaeological excavations/ surveys in Turkey between 2013 and 2017 and complemented my fieldwork with a curatorial internship at ‘Curating Heads: What Does it mean to be Human?’ exhibition of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. For this internship, I was awarded with the Elizabeth Bartman Scholarship by the Archaeological Institute of America in 2017.
In 2018, I obtained my M.A in Heritage Management and Museum Studies at Koç University and have since been working on the management of archaeological human remains in Turkish museums and excavations. My PhD expands on my previous research and investigates the role of politics, identity and ethics in the management and preservation of archaeological human remains in Turkey.
Research
In my PhD project, I aim to expand my previous research on Turkey and bring together interdisciplinary methodologies from anthropology, history, archaeology, and heritage studies to research the socio-political motivations that have contributed to the failure of Turkish cultural institutions to develop policy concerning archaeological human remains. I plan to examine how different attitudes surrounding the ethics and repatriation of human remains have evolved in Turkey in relation to conflicting perceptions of identity. The Gallipoli peninsula, as a former conflict landscape, will be an important site for this research since it provides the ideal case study through which concepts such as ownership, ethics and identity in human remains management can be examined.
Publications
Doğan, Elifgül , and Lucienne Thys-Şenocak. 2019. "Türkiye’de Arkeolojik İnsan Kalıntıları Yönetimi." In Memento Mori Ölüm ve Ölüm Uygulamaları, edited by Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya and Elif Başak Aksoy. İstanbul: Ege Yayınları.
Thys-Şenocak, Lucienne, and Elifgül Doğan, eds. 2018. Archaeology, Museums and Tourism on the Gallipoli Peninsula: Issues of Human Remains, Ordnance, and Local Decision-Making. Edited by Burcu Akan, Katja Piesker, Duygu Göçmen and Seçil Sezer-Altay, Heritage in Context 2: Archäologie und Tourismus / Archaeology and Tourism / Arkeoloji ve Turizm, Miras 4. Istanbul: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut.
Doğan, Elifgül and Lucienne Thys-Şenocak. 2019. Dilemmas of Digging and Displaying: The Management of Archaeological Human Remains in the Excavations and Museums of Turkey (in progress).
Teaching and Supervisions
Supervisor: Dr. Jody Joy
