DrAyca Arkilic

I am a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics. I joined Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington as a Lecturer in Comparative Politics in June 2017, following the completion of my PhD in Government at the University of Texas at Austin. I have been teaching and researching international migration, European politics, and Middle Eastern politics. I supervise Honours, Master's, and PhD students. 

My recent research recognitions include:

• Royal Society of New Zealand Early Career Research Excellence Award for Social Sciences (2025)
• American Political Science Association (APSA) Migration & Citizenship Section Emerging Scholar Award (2024)
• Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fast Start Grant (2024)
• European Commission Jean Monnet Grant (2023)
• Victoria University of Wellington Early Career Research Excellence Award (2022)
• Victoria University of Wellington Mai i te Iho ki te Pae – Special Commendation Award, in recognition of engagement with Mātauranga Māori and Māori communities (2022)
• Richard Gillespie Best Research Article Prize (2020)

I was also awarded the 2021 Victoria Early Career Teaching Excellence Award, the 2020 Faculty Strategic Research Grant, and the 2019 Research Establishment Grant. I am one of the founding members of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Aotearoa (MEISA) network, which brings together more than 60 scholars and graduate students interested in the Middle East and Islam in Aotearoa New Zealand. I serve as associate editor of the international peer-reviewed Q1 journal, Mediterranean Politics, and am part of the editorial committee of Diaspora Studies.

I published my first book (Diaspora Diplomacy: The Politics of Turkish Emigration to Europe, Manchester University Press) in 2022. This book was chosen as one of the Top Ten Books of 2023 by International Affairs.

I am also the co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Turkey's Diasporas (2024, co-edited with Banu Senay). The Turkish translation of the book was published by the Migration Research Institute in Istanbul in January 2026.

In Spring 2024, I spent my sabbatical at Harvard's Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies as a visiting scholar. Between 2013 and 2015, I was a Chateaubriand Fellow at Sciences Po-Paris, a visiting researcher at the WZB Berlin Social Science Research Center, and an Imam Tirmizi Visiting Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies.

My current research activities include: (1) a three-year project on religious conversion and identity in post-Christchurch attack Aotearoa New Zealand (supported by a Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fast Start, with associate investigator Noeleen van de Lisdonk); and (2) another three-year project on new challenges and opportunities in Europe (NECOTE Jean Monnet Module supported by the European Commission). My other research has attracted funding from the EU, VUW, the University of Texas at Austin, the French government, the University of Oxford, UNESCO, the European Science Foundation, and the European Union Centres Network of New Zealand.