Erdem Avşar is a transdisciplinary social researcher, artist-researcher and award-winning educator whose work explores how cultural and sociotechnical infrastructures, including artificial intelligence, shape democracy, urban life, belonging and everyday experiences of power.

His research and teaching are organised around RE:GOVERN, a critical and pedagogical framework that brings together AI, retrofuturism, social policy, human rights and participatory practice. Drawing on utopian thought and speculative narratives, RE:GOVERN challenges commercially driven and exclusionary technological imaginaries while creating space for students, communities and policymakers to imagine, prototype and govern more democratic, climate-conscious and socially just sociotechnical futures.

Working across critical AI and data studies, urban studies, social policy, human rights and socially engaged practice, Erdem investigates how technologies, institutions and cultural practices produce inequality, exclusion and democratic possibility. His pedagogy encourages students to move beyond technological solutionism and to critically examine how sociotechnical systems are designed, governed and contested through the lenses of democracy, climate justice, human rights and collective care. Across his research and teaching, he combines ethnography with filmmaking, speculative storytelling, games, walking as method, performance and community co-design to develop imaginative approaches to research, public engagement and policymaking.

Erdem completed his PhD in Sociology and Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow as a Lord Kelvin/Adam Smith Fellow. His doctoral research examined the queer politics of theatre-making in Turkey and the dramaturgies of grief, hope and democratic imagination. Since 2020, he has taught across Sociology and Media, Culture and Society at the University of Glasgow, contributing to teaching and curriculum development before joining the Division of Urban Studies and Social Policy.

He has designed and led numerous arts-based, participatory and public-facing research projects in the UK and internationally, working with communities, artists, activists, educators and policymakers on migration, racial justice, LGBTQIA+ rights, gender-based violence, democratic participation and responsible technologies.

Erdem currently co-leads QUEERDEMOS, an EU Horizon pump-priming project examining the infrastructures of democratic backsliding and resistance across Europe. He is an Affiliate Artist with the UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Education, Languages and the Arts (RIELA), where he develops multilingual creative projects exploring migration, education and social justice. He also serves as an Early Career Representative for the Just City by the Med Research Network.

His previous research includes the British Academy-funded LLAMIS project (Language Learning and Migrant “Integration” in Scotland), Queer Family Migration, and the British Council Creative Collaborations project Performance Ecologies: Towards a Good Life.

Developed as part of RE:GOVERN, Care Engine is a participatory DIY offline AI game exploring migration, racial justice, responsible technologies and the future of care. Originally created through UNESCO RIELA, the project is now travelling across the UK, where it is being collaboratively adapted with grassroots organisations as a resource for activism, political education and community-led sociotechnical futures.

Alongside his academic work, Erdem continues to work as a theatre-maker, facilitator and translator. His performances and artistic collaborations have been presented in Scotland, Germany and Italy, while his critical-creative writing and sociological fiction have appeared in clavmag, Lune Journal, The Book of Bad Betties (Bad Betty Press) and Collaborative Playwriting (Routledge). In 2019, he received the Kevin Elyot Award from the University of Bristol Theatre Collection. His first monograph, forthcoming with Bloomsbury in 2027, explores the intersections of utopian urbanism, democracy, queer politics and performance in Turkey.

Across his research, teaching and creative practice, Erdem is particularly interested in collaborations that cross disciplinary boundaries, connect universities with communities, and develop imaginative ways of conducting research, informing policy and collectively shaping more democratic and socially just futures.

Sociotechnical infrastructures, data, and critical AI
Democracy, social policy and human rights
Urban life, belonging and democratic participation
Utopian studies, speculative narratives and retrofuturism
Creative and participatory methods, methodologies and pedagogies
Queer theory, performance and socially engaged practice

Research groups

• Media, Culture & Society

List by: Type | Date

SGSSS Advanced Training Fund (ATF) with Professor Anna Feigenbaum for Advanced Training in Embodied Research for
Social Scientists: Creative, Collaborative and Participatory Methods (2025-2026)

Sociology and Cultural Studies Seed Corn Fund (College of Social Sciences, University of Glasgow) (2025) (Co-I on a queer migration pilot study, PI: Dr Francesca Stella)

British Council UK-Turkey Creative Collaborations Grant (2023-2024) (UK Partner and Co-PI)

Kevin Elyot Award, University of Bristol Theatre
Collection (2019)

Lord Kelvin Adam Smith Interdisciplinary PhD Scholarship/Fellowship, College of Social Sciences, University of Glasgow (2019-2024)

EU International Plays! Prize (2017), Creative Europe and Quartieri dell'Arte Festival

I supervise undergraduate and postgradute taught projects. I also welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students working in any of my areas of research interest and would be happy to discuss joining a supervisory team as a second or third supervisor.

Prizes, awards & distinctions

• 2025: Global Talent (Exceptional Promise) in Culture, Media and Performance Studies (British Academy)

Grant committees & research advisory boards

• 2025: ESRC, ESRC Assessor College
• 2025: British Academy, Early Career Researcher Network Seed Fund Reviewers