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Sociology Research

 

Dr Özge Onay

Özge Onay is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Cambridge, where her research and teaching explore the intersections of race, power, and inequality. She is particularly interested in the various manifestations of racism and racialisation, as well as issues of political space and belonging, marginalisation, Islamophobia, and environmental racism.

Before joining Cambridge, Onay worked as a Teaching Assistant and Teaching Associate at the University of York and Loughborough University, and prior to moving to the UK for her PhD, she taught as an EAP instructor at prestigious higher education institutions in Istanbul, Turkey.

She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of York in 2022. Since then, she has published multiple journal articles in high-impact journals, including Ethnic and Racial Studies and Capitalism Nature Socialism, and her first monograph, In the Shadow of Islamophobia: Identity and Belonging for British Turks (Routledge, 2025), has been published. She was also Runner-Up for the Early Career Excellence Award (2024) and shortlisted for outstanding contributions to education and student experience (2024) at Loughborough University.

Research Interests

Racisms and racialisation, and Islamophobia
Political space and belonging
Marginalisation and environmental racism
Critical whiteness studies, Orientalism, and coloniality

Research Projects

Leading an upcoming research project examining the intersections of ecological Islamophobia, environmental racism, and urban marginalisation, with a focus on Muslim and other racialised communities in East London. The project considers Abbey Mills Mosque (Stratford), located in the industrial heart of the area near the 2012 Olympic Park, which serves approximately 2,500 worshippers in a former industrial building and has proposed expansion plans to accommodate community growth. It also examines Poplar Shahjalal Masjid (Tower Hamlets), situated near the heavily trafficked Blackwall Tunnel, exposing local residents to some of the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) in London, with significant health impacts including reduced lung capacity among children.

The study explores how environmental hazards, urban redevelopment, and zero-net ambitions fall disproportionately on marginalised communities, shaping decisions about which places will survive, which cultures will thrive, and which will be abandoned or annihilated. It also highlights community-led responses, such as the Faith in Environment Summit 2024, convened by the East London Mosque in partnership with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to address climate action, waste reduction, and sustainability initiatives.

Teaching

SOC11 Paper Coordinator
MPhil Supervisor

Publications

Books

Onay, Ö. (2025). In the Shadow of Islamophobia: Identity and Belonging for British Turks (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003484714.

 

Book Chapters

Onay, Ö. (2026, forthcoming). Eco-Islamophobia: An Emerging Concept. In I. Zempi & I. Awan (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Islamophobia (2nd ed.). Routledge

 

Journal Articles

Onay, Ö. (2025). Mining the margins: Racial capitalism and the dispossession of Turkey’s ethnic minorities. Capitalism Nature Socialism. https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2025.2549301

Onay, Ö. & Millington, G. (2025). Negotiations with whiteness in British Turkish Muslims’ encounters with Islamophobia. Ethnic and Racial Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2024.2317955

Onay, Ö. (2025). A critique of the UK’s counter-terrorism policy: Security measures or Islamophobic policies? Journal of Penal Law and Criminology. Doi:10.26650/JPLC2024-1520359

Onay, Ö. (2024). Navigating Racialisation and Whiteness: British Turks’ Struggles for Belonging in Multiscale Public Spaces within the UK. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, 11(2), 105–122. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejecs/1964

Onay, Ö. (2024). “Brexit’s Illusion: Decoding Islamophobia and Othering in Turkey’s EU Accession Discourse among British Turks” in a special issue called “Religions.” https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/7R53832XG8

Onay, Ö. (2023). Living the Clash Within: Secular/Conservative Divide of Immigrant Turkish Parents on the Identity Formations of British Turks. Journal of Family Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/13229400.2023.2225499

Onay, Ö. (2021). The Diminishing Agency of Urbanised Alevis Against the Rise of Political Islam in Turkey. Poligrafi, 26(101/102). 177-200. https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2021.281

Onay, Ö. (2018). Motivation Behind. Şiddet ve Sosyal Travmalar, 190. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329988466_SIDDET_VE_SOSYAL_TRAV...
 

Reports

Onay, Ö. (2025, March). Written evidence on Gendered Islamophobia. [GIS0005]. UK Parliament. https://committees.parliament.uk/

 

Book Reviews

Onay, Ö (2025). ‘Review of the book Spirits of extraction: Christianity, settler colonialism and the geology of race, by C. Blencowe’. Ethnic and Racial Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2025.2557437

Onay, Ö (2024). ‘Am I less British?’: Racism, belonging, and the children of refugees and immigrants in North London by Doğuş Şimşek. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/27170733.v1

Onay, O. (2023). The Unfinished Politics of Race: Histories of Political Participation, Migration, and Multiculturalism by Les Back, Michael Keith, Kalbir Shukra, John Solomos, Cambridge University Press, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2023.2234015

Onay, O. (2022). Islam on Campus: Contested Identities and the Cultures of Higher Education in Britain: by Alison Scott-Baumann, Mathew Guest, Shuruq Naguib, Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor, Aisha Phoenix, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2021.1959043

Onay, O. (2022). Islamophobia and surveillance: genealogies of global order: by James Renton, New York, Routledge, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2021.1959043

Onay, O. (2021). Islamophobic hate crime: a student handbook: by Imran Awan and Irene Zempi, London and New York, Routledge, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2021.1959043

Research Groups & Affiliations

British Society of Criminology Midlands Regional Group

Green Criminology European working group

Awards

Runner-Up for the Early Career Excellence Award (2024)

Nominated for the Education and Student Experience Excellence Award (2024)

Job Title:
Teaching Associate
Contact Information:

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