Staff profile

I am a feminist cultural and political geographer. I received my PhD in Geography from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2000. Over the past two decades, my work has contributed to feminist political geography, cultural geography, urban geography, Turkish studies, geographies of religion, and spatial theory. From 2016-2022, I served as an editor of cultural geographies (Sage). 

The strands of my work converge on questions of difference, politics, and space. I ask: What is ‘difference,’ how does it emerge, how does it become political, and what is at stake in this process? What are the embodied, affective, and topological dimensions of the (geo)political? How can we rethink core geographical concepts such that they become tools for a feminist and decolonial politics? How might geographical thought and research practice unleash new political potentialities? These questions animate my ongoing reading, teaching, writing and experimentation in geography.

• Affect and Politics
• Political Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Gender
• Social Theory
• Middle East
• Refugees
• Religion
• Trauma Literature and Trauma Studies
• Psychoanalysis
• Deleuze
• Topology
• Creative Geographies

• Geographies of Life
• Politics - State - Space (PSS)
• Urban Worlds

Chapter in book

• Gökarıksel, Banu & Secor, Anna J. (Published). Beyond the symbolism of the headscarf: the assemblage of veiling and the headscarf as an agentic thing. In The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Material Religion. Narayanan, V John Wiley & Sons.
• Ehrkamp, P., Loyd, J. & Secor, A.J. (2019). Embodiment and Memory in the Geopolitics of Trauma. In Handbook on Critical Geographies of Migration. Fluri J, Mitchell K & Jones R Edward Elgar Press. 117-129.
• Secor, Anna J. (2018). I love death: War in Syria and the Anxiety of the Other. In Psychoanalysis and the GlObal. Kapoor, I. Nebraska University Press. 97-115.
• Gökarıksel, B & Secor, AJ (2015). What Makes a Commodity Islamic? The Case of Veiling Fashion in Turkey. In Islam, Marketing, and Consumption: Critical Perspectives on the Intersections. Jafari, A & Sandıkcı, Ö Routledge. 123-138.
• Blum, V. & Secor, A.J. (2014). Mapping trauma: topography to topology. In Psychoanalytic Geographies. Pile, S. & Kingsbury, P Ashgate. 103-116.
• Gökarıksel, B & Secor, AJ (2013). Transnational networks of veiling-fashion between Turkey and Western Europe. In Islamic Fashion and Anti-Fashion. Tarlo, E. & Moors, A. Bloomsbury Academic. 157-167.
• Gökarıksel, B & Secor, AJ (2012). ‘You can't know how they are inside’ The ambivalence of veiling and discourses of the other in Turkey. In Religion and Place: Landscape, Politics, and Piety. Kong, L, Hopkins, P & Olson, B Springer. 95-114.
• Secor, Anna J. (2006). An unrecognizable condition has arrived: Law, violence, and the state of exception. In Violent Geographies: Fear, Terror, and Political Violence. Gregory, D & Pred, A Routledge. 37-53.
• Falah, G. & Nagel, C. (2005). Islamism, democracy and the political production of the headscarf issue in Turkey. In Geographies of Muslim Women: Gender, Religion and Space. Guilford. 203-225.
• Secor, Anna J. (2004). Feminizing electoral geography. In Mapping Women, Making Politics. Staeheli, LA, Kofman, E & Peake, L Routledge. 261-272.
• Secor, Anna J (2004). Discourses of globalization and Islamist politics: Beyond global-local. In Globalization and its Outcomes. O’Loughlin, J Staeheli, L & Greenberg, E Guilford. 279-295.

Edited book

• Kingsbury, Paul & Secor, Anna J (2021). A Place More Void. Cultural Geographies + Rewriting the Earth. University of Nebraska Press.
• Agne, J., Mamadouh, V. Secor, A.J. & Sharp, J (2015). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography. John Wiley & Sons.

Journal Article

• Secor, Anna J. (2023). (Re)birthing the maternal. Transpositiones 2(1): 77-92.
• Secor, Anna J. & Blum, Virginia (2023). Lockdown time, time loops, and the crisis of the future. Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society
• Loyd, Jenna M., Secor, Anna J. & Ehrkamp, Patricia (2023). Geopolitics of Disability and the Ablenationalism of Refuge. Geopolitics
• Gökarıksel, Banu & Secor, Anna J. (2023). The space of encounter and the making of difference: The entangled lives of Alevi and Sunni neighbours in Turkey. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 48(2): 380-394.
• Anderson, Ben, Awal, Akanksha, Cockayne, Daniel, Greenhough, Beth, Linz, Jess, Mazumdar, Anurag, Nassar, Aya, Pettit, Harry, Roe, Emma J., Ruez, Derek, Salas Landa, Mónica, Secor, Anna & Williams, Aelwyn (2023). Encountering Berlant part two: Cruel and other optimisms. The Geographical Journal 189(1): 143-160.
• Gökarıksel, Banu & Secor, Anna J. (2022). Uneasy Neighbors: The Making of Sectarian Difference and Alevi Precarity in Urban Turkey. International Journal of Middle East Studies 54(2): 243-259.
• Secor, Anna J, Ehrkamp, Patricia & Loyd, Jenna M (2022). The problem of the future in the spacetime of resettlement: Iraqi refugees in the U.S. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 40(3): 508-527.
• Anderson, Ben & Secor, Anna (2022). Propositions on right-wing populism: Available, excessive, optimistic. Political Geography 96: 102608.
• Dekeyser, Thomas, Secor, Anna, Rose, Mitch, Bissell, David, Zhang, Vickie & Romanillos, Jose Luis (2022). Negativity: space, politics and affects. cultural geographies 29(1): 5-21.
• Ehrkamp, Patricia, Loyd, Jenna M. & Secor, Anna J. (2022). Trauma as Displacement: Observations from Refugee Resettlement. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 112(3): 715-722.
• Linz, Jess & Secor, Anna J. (2021). Undoing mastery: With ambivalence? Dialogues in Human Geography 11(1): 108-111.
• Cockayne, Daniel G., Ruez, Derek & Secor, Anna J. (2020). Thinking space differently: Deleuze's Möbius topology for a theorisation of the encounter. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
• Hardesty, Robby, Linz, Jess & Secor, Anna J. (2019). Walter Benja-Memes. GeoHumanities 1.
• Loyd, Jenna M., Ehrkamp, Patricia & Secor, Anna J. (2018). A geopolitics of trauma: Refugee administration and protracted uncertainty in Turkey. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 43(3): 377-389.
• Gökarıksel, Banu & Secor, Anna J (2018). Affective geopolitics: Anxiety, pain, and ethics in the encounter with Syrian refugees in Turkey. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 239965441881425.
• Gökarıksel, Banu & Secor, Anna (2017). The post-Islamist problematic: questions of religion and difference in everyday life. Social & Cultural Geography 18(5): 645.
• Gökarıksel, Banu & Secor, Anna J. (2017). Devout Muslim masculinities: the moral geographies and everyday practices of being men in Turkey. Gender, Place & Culture 24(3): 381.
• Cockayne, Daniel G., Ruez, Derek & Secor, Anna (2017). Between ontology and representation. Progress in Human Geography 41(5): 580.
• Secor, Anna & Linz, Jess (2017). Becoming minor. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 35(4): 568.
• Gökarıksel, Banu & Secor, Anna (2015). Post-secular geographies and the problem of pluralism: Religion and everyday life in Istanbul, Turkey. Political Geography 46: 21.
• Martin, Lauren & Secor, Anna J. (2014). Towards a post-mathematical topology. Progress in Human Geography 38(3): 420-438.
• Gökarıksel, Banu & Secor, Anna (2014). The Veil, Desire, and the Gaze: Turning the Inside Out. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 40(1): 177.
• Secor, Anna (2013). 2012 Urban Geography Plenary Lecture Topological City. Urban Geography 34(4): 430.
• Gökarıksel, Banu & Secor, Anna (2012). “Even I Was Tempted” The Moral Ambivalence and Ethical Practice of Veiling-Fashion in Turkey. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 102(4): 847.
• Roberts, Sue, Secor, Anna & Zook, Matthew (2011). Critical Infrastructure: Mapping the Leaky Plumbing of US Hegemony. Antipode 44(1): 5.
• Secor, Anna (2011). Turkey's Democracy: A Model for the Troubled Middle East? Eurasian Geography and Economics 52(2): 157.
• Blum, Virginia & Secor, Anna (2011). Psychotopologies: Closing the Circuit between Psychic and Material Space. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 29(6): 1030.
• Gökarıksel, Banu & Secor, Anna (2010). Islamic-ness in the life of a commodity: veiling-fashion in Turkey. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 35(3): 313.
• Gökarıksel, Banu & Secor, Anna (2010). Between Fashion andTesettür. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 6(3): 118.
• Gökarıksel, Banu & Secor, Anna J (2009). New transnational geographies of Islamism, capitalism and subjectivity: the veiling-fashion industry in Turkey. Area 41(1): 6.
• Secor, Anna J (2008). Žižek's Dialectics of Difference and the Problem of Space. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 40(11): 2623.
• Belcher, O, Martin, L, Secor, A, Simon, S & Wilson, T (2008). "Everywhere and Nowhere: The Exception and the Topological Challenge to Geography". Antipode 40(4): 499-503.
• Secor, Anna J (2007). Between Longing and Despair: State, Space, and Subjectivity in Turkey. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 25(1): 33.
• Secor, Anna (2007). Review essay: Territory, enmity, and American globalism. Review of International Political Economy 14(3): 535.
• Secor, Anna J. & O'Loughlin, John (2005). Social and political trust in Istanbul and Moscow: A comparative analysis of individual and neighbourhood effects. Transactions of the Institute for British Geographers, 30(1): 66-82.
• Secor, Anna (2004). “There Is an Istanbul That Belongs to Me” Citizenship, Space, and Identity in the City. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94(2): 352.
• Secor, Anna J (2003). Belaboring Gender: The Spatial Practice of Work and the Politics of ‘Making Do’ in Istanbul. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 35(12): 2209.
• Roberts, Susan, Secor, Anna & Sparke, Matthew (2003). Neoliberal Geopolitics. Antipode 35(5): 886.
• Secor, Anna J. (2003). Citizenship in the City: Identity, Community, and Rights Among Women Migrants to Istanbul. Urban Geography 24(2): 147.
• Secor, Anna J. (2002). The Veil and Urban Space in Istanbul: Women's dress, mobility and Islamic knowledge. Gender, Place & Culture 9(1): 5.
• Secor, Anna J. (2001). Toward a Feminist Counter-geopolitics: Gender, Space and Islamist Politics in Istanbul. Space and Polity 5(3): 191.
• Secor, Anna (2001). Islamist politics: Antisystemic or post‐modern movements? Geopolitics 6(3): 117.
• Secor, A.J. (2001). Ideologies in crisis: political cleavages and electoral politics in Turkey in the 1990s. Political Geography 20(5): 539.
• Secor, A.J. (1999). Gender, Orientalism and Class in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters: To Persons of Distinction, Men of Letters &c. Ecumene 6(4): 375-398.