Dr. Esra Alkim Karaagac

I am a broadly trained human geographer with research and teaching interests across urban, economic, and feminist geographies.

My research and teaching programme engages with everyday economic geographies of (1) financialization and indebtedness, (2) urban housing justice, home, and social reproduction, (3) educational mobilities, migrant workers and labour precarity.

I take an ethnographic approach to geographical research that draws on multiple qualitative and quantitative methods, centring on people and their experiences of social and economic life in cities.

I currently am an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Geography at the University of Waterloo. I work as the PI of the research project titled: Making a Home in Off-Campus Housing: Bringing visibility to international student families through narratives of homespace. This two-year project is funded by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2022-24).

I am also a Postdoctoral Fellow at Queen's University, in Geography and Planning Department. In my post-doctoral research, I study International Student Indebtedness, examining the role of private lending practices in Canada’s international higher education system, focusing on the socio-economic impacts of predatory lending on student experiences in university towns. This research is funded through Queen's University's QROF Postdoctoral Fellowship (2022-24).

I completed my PhD in Geography at the University of Waterloo in 2022. In my PhD research: In Debt to the State, I examined the lived experiences and everyday negotiations of finance and debts in state-led mass housing projects in Istanbul, to understand how housing policies shape relations of homeownership, gendered labour, and household finance. Prior to my PhD, I had seven years of professional work experience within government and non-profit organizations in Turkey as well as international settings, through professional fellowships (American Councils PFP). I have worked in teams and coordinated research projects funded by the United Nations and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey

Please visit alkimkaraagac.com for more information on my work. I would love to hear from you if you would like to collaborate or have questions. You can contact me at eakaraag@uwaterloo.ca OR e.karaagac@queensu.ca