"What kind of transformation does achieving communal peace and social justice account for? Violent experiences to date, if vertical, are keeping us away from the reality of peace — so what about our renewed positionalities and transitional perspectives?"
— Telli, A. "The politics of cooperative movements in three continents: Mesopotamia Coop in Rojava, Mondragon in Basque Country and Ascoop in Colombia" (2022)
☙
Peace
☉
Commons
⚐
Freedom
☯
Worldmaking
Intellectual Orientation
A Scholar for Communal Horizons
Dr. Asli Telli's work inhabits the crossroads of knowledge commons, south-south cooperation, and community-led emancipation. Trained across three continents — Istanbul, Paris, London, and the European Graduate School — she has spent over two decades asking how participatory technologies, critical digital pedagogies, and cooperative structures can dismantle vertical power and make communal peace liveable. Her scholarship is inseparable from her activism: from mapping displaced scholars to facilitating cross-border dialogue, she embodies the scholactivist ethics she theorises.
Grounding Reference: Cooperative Worldmaking across Three Continents
Her comparative study of the Mesopotamia Coop (Rojava), Mondragon (Basque Country), and ASCOOP (Colombia) — dedicated to David Graeber — maps three distinct models of communal peace-building through cooperative structures: Mesopotamia as radical political experiment shaped under war conditions; Mondragon as advanced socio-economic model pushing the boundaries of capitalist alternatives; and ASCOOP as an ecological learning and DIY economy rooted in educational cooperation. Together they constitute a grammar of worldmaking beyond the state.
Formed through trans-Atlantic double diplomas and Paris borderland theory — an education that was itself a lesson in cooperative, pluriversal knowledge-making.
2005
PhD · Media and Communication Studies · magna cum laude
Double diplôme — Appalachian State University (USA) & European Graduate School (Switzerland)
Thesis: Politics of Speed in Metaphorical Space: The Infinite City — a spatial theory of digital commons
1999
MA · Social Anthropology and Critical Studies
Paris VIII St. Denis — the university born of 1968, embedded in liberatory traditions
1998
Diplôme · Feature Writing and Freelance Journalism
London School of Journalism
1997
BA · Political Science and International Relations
Marmara University, Istanbul
Praxis Sites
Academic & Research Positions
Each position has been a site of scholactivism — from South Africa's post-apartheid knowledge infrastructure to the digital rights commons of Europe and Turkey's silenced campuses.
2024–present
Research Associate · Global South Studies Center, University of Cologne
South-south epistemology; knowledge commons across the Global South
2021–2023
OSUN Remote Research Fellow · WISER, Wits University, South Africa
Co-designing collaborative platforms for critical knowledge commons — a cooperative model for scholarly solidarity
2017–2020
Alexander von Humboldt PSI Fellow · Uni-Siegen, Locating Media
Platform studies of grassroots developer communities and communities in need — commons-building in new media
2016
Gregory Ulmer Fellow · European Graduate School, Spring School Malta
2010–2016
Full-time Faculty · İstanbul Şehir University, College of Communication
Teaching and researching through the political turbulence of Turkey's campus crackdowns
2006–2009
Adjunct Fellow · European Graduate School, Spring & Summer Seminars
1999–2006
Lecturer · İstanbul Bilgi University, Faculty of Communication
One of Turkey's most progressive universities — a commons of critical thought before closures
Cooperative Projects
Funded Research & Action Projects
A portfolio of over €1.9 million in research funding, consistently oriented toward solidarity economies, digital rights, at-risk scholars, and participatory democratic culture — the material infrastructure of worldmaking.
€50,000
Designing Collaborative Platforms of Action for Critical Knowledge Commons in the Global South
OSF Research Grant · Remote fellowship at WISER, Wits University · Commons-building across southern epistemic communities
2021–2024
€180,000
Platform Studies of Developer Communities and Communities in Need: Grassroots Action in New Media
PSI Fellowship Grant · Cooperative platform governance from below
2017–2020
€30,000
Mapping Assistance: Support Networks for At-Risk Scholars in Europe
SIDA Grant · Crowdsourced solidarity data for displaced academics — a commons of academic freedom
2017–2019
€25,000
NRW Mobile Solidarity Academy — Citizen Workshops on Right Populism's Impact on Migrants
Uni-Siegen · KulturForum TürkeiDeutschland · Tüday e.V. · Academy in Exile · Cooperative pedagogy for migrant communities
2017–2019
€27,000
UNESCO Adult Training Program for Digital Literacy in Public Governance
Principal Investigator · Digital commons for civic participation
2015
€40,000
Online Kids Project — Digital Safety for Children (7–12)
Internet Society Turkey Chapter · Advisor
2016–2017
€1.5M
Civicweb: Internet, Young People and Participation
EU FP VI · Lead researcher, İstanbul Bilgi University · Youth civic commons online (civicweb.eu)
2006–2009
€50,000
Digital City Platforms for Collaborative Action and Participation
Gregory Ulmer Research Grant · PhD thesis research
2002–2005
Writings
Key Publications
Writings that map the terrain where academic freedom, digital commons, cooperative solidarity, and diasporic worldmaking converge. From Turkey's silenced campuses to Rojava's communal economy, each text is an act of bearing witness and proposing alternatives.
Issue Mapping as Critical Methodology in Grounded Action Research
Monograph · Peter Lang, Berlin, 2026 · Open Access (CC-BY-NC-ND) · DOI: 10.3726/b23245 · Made possible through the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation dissemination grant · XX, 138 pp.
Commons methodology
Radikal Başkalık ve Barış Gerçeği Üzerine… [On Radical Alterity and the Reality of Peace…]
Blog essay in memoriam David Graeber · Barışı Radikalleştirmek series, no. 9 · DEMOS Araştırma Kolektifi (DEMOS Research Collective), 14 March 2021
Published in Turkish. The essay traces Graeber's encounter with the Mesopotamia Cooperative in Rojava — the communal cooperative he witnessed being founded during a brief stay — reading it as both a radical alterity experiment and a sine qua non of communal peace. Drawing on cooperative economy reports from Mesopotamia Coop and Graeber's own fieldwork reflections, it maps dual-power structures, feminist commune governance, and the commons-transition economy as conditions for peace. Part of a series supported by the EU Rights Support Programme through DEMOS.
Internationalisation nexus in European higher education: forced or intended?
International Journal of Human Rights, 2022 · DOI: 10.1080/13642987.2022.2081158 · ISA Best Paper Award 2022
Academic freedom
Towards structural responses to the displacement of scholars: The Mapping Funds project
In: Academics in Exile, transcript Verlag, 2022
Solidarity commons
Journalism Exiled but Hopeful: Rewriting Narratives from the Margins
In: Exiled Intellectuals, Palgrave McMillan, 2025
Freedom / worldmaking
No Platforming: Safe Campus and Ambivalent Twists on Freedom of Speech
Navigationen — Zeitschrift für Medien-und Kulturwissenschaften, 2019
Freedom
The Infinite City: Politics of Speed
Monograph · Atropos Press, Dresden & New York, 2009
Urban commons / worldmaking
Manuel Castells — Trilogy on Information Society (3 vols., trans. Turkish)
İstanbul Bilgi University Publications, 2005–2008
Knowledge commons translation
Pedagogy
Courses as Commons
Teaching as a cooperative practice — courses designed to build critical digital citizens, conflict mediators, and global south-literate scholars.
Digital GovernanceOpen GovernmentsGlobal Studies & Political CulturesConflict Resolution (Non-Western)Interpersonal MediationNew Media SkillsCyber Communication TheoriesVisual Communication & DesignDigital Media & CultureInternational Orgs (N/S Context)
Peace Training
Dialogue, Pedagogy & Non-Violence Certificates
A practitioner's formation in the methodologies of peace — from Freirean critical pedagogy to OSCE dialogue processes, accumulating a toolkit for facilitated worldmaking.
2020
Critical Pedagogy & Non-Violent Communication
Freire Institute, Cambridge, UK
2019
Training the Trainers Certificate
Knowledge Academy, UK
2018
Pedagogy Certificate for Adult Learners
Critical Pedagogy Lab, University of Mary Washington, DC
2016
UN Advanced Facilitator of Dialogue and Cultural Diversity
Soliya International Connect Program
2015
1.5 and 2.0 Dialogue Process Certificate
OSCE
2014
Designing Digital Learning Environments (Advanced)
Stanford Venture Lab
Networks
Commons Memberships & Digital Rights Networks
European Digital Rights (EDRi) — Country RepresentativeInternet Governance Forum / GIGAnetElectronic Frontier FoundationEuropean Commons AssemblyCompetence Center for PeaceInternational Center for Freelance Journalists