Research Institute on Turkey is a grassroots research cooperative based in New York City.  

We are an interdisciplinary group of researchers, artists, writers, architects, scientists and activists who explore and engage in commonization practices for social change.

Our goal is to contribute to a pluralistic, egalitarian, and democratic Turkey with an emphasis on human rights, social and economic justice, gender equality, sexual rights, cultural and political recognition and ecologic sustainability from a critical historical perspective.

We develop in-situ embodied knowledge through in-depth, focused research and policy analysis, creative public engagement, collective learning activities, solidarity campaigns and network collaborations.

Our current research areas

• Collective Memory
• Aesthetics and Politics
• Urban Justice and Right to the City
• Commoner’s Academy

Our activities

• Facilitating interdisciplinary research through collaborative networks;
• Developing practices of creative public engagement including data visualization projects, media campaigns, recording of collective memory in archives and museums,
• Organizing lectures, workshops, exhibitions, conferences and summer schools as part of the RIT University of the Commons.

A new model: a research institute

• An ongoing collective learning process
• Open and egalitarian participation of members in decision-making
• An alternative to corporate think-tank models
• A productive model of brewing ideas and action through solidarity
• A hub for creativity and of thinking outside the box
• A collective body of work that culminates impactful tools for social transformation and change