Cihan Erdal is a PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology in Carleton University.

Erdal’s ongoing doctoral research concentrates upon the experiences of young people who were engaged in activism for radical social change in Europe, primarily in the cities of Athens, Istanbul and Paris, during the 2010s and 2020s.

Erdal’s M.A. thesis focused on the reproduction of abilik (big brotherhood), a form of institutionalized hierarchy based on age, experience, and gender faced by youth in the left political space of Turkey throughout the 2000s. He conducted several field researches in Turkey; such as “The Memory of Taksim Square from May 1, 1977 to May 1, 2015”, “Youth Discourse of Left-wing Parties after Gezi Resistance”,“The Political Cultures and Ways of Activism of LGBTI+ Youth in Turkey in the 2000s”; and co-edited the book, Gezi: A Revolutionary Compass (Ayrinti, 2017).

Along with his academic work, Erdal has been involved in social movements as an activist for over a decade. He took roles in several political initiatives particularly on youth, left, LGBTI+. Erdal also hosted a weekly web-based TV program on youth and politics in 2017.