Profile
Elife Bicer portrait

Elife Biçer-Deveci

Researcher, International History and Politics
Spoken languages
English, German, Turkish, French

Elife Biçer-Deveci is a researcher in the SNSF research project Chemical Crossroads: Agrarian Transitions, Pesticide Controversies and International Governance, 1940-1970 (2025-2028), supervised by Amalia Ribi Forclaz and Corinna Ruth Unger (European University Institute). 

She holds a DPhil in modern history from the University of Bern (2016), where she was a fellow of the Graduate School of Gender Studies and the Graduate School for Global Studies. She has held SNF Postdoc Mobility Grants and Gerda Henkel Foundation fellowships at the Central European University (Budapest), the University of Oxford, the ETH Zurich, and the Walter Benjamin Kolleg in Bern.  

Her areas of expertise include 19th and 20th century women's movements, temperance movements, international organisations, women's rights, and the social history of alcohol and drugs. She has published several articles and books on these topics, including the monograph Ottoman-Turkish Women's Movement in the Context of International Organisations (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017). Most recently, she co-organised the conference "International Organisations in the Global South: Body Politics, Power Relations, Local Impacts" with grants from the Pierre du Bois Foundation and the SNF exchange programme. 
 

 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

 

Monographs

  • Ottoman-Turkish Women’s Movement in the Context of International Women’s Organisations. (published in German). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017, openaccess: https://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/book/10.14220/9783737007474 
  • Alcohol in the Maghreb and the Middle East since the Nineteenth Century. Disputes, Policies and Practices. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan St. Antony’s Series, 2021. (co-edited with Philippe Bourmaud).

Articles in Peer Reviewed Journals

  • “Medicalizing the ‘Alcohol Problem’ in the Ottoman Empire: Expert Networks and Exchanges between Istanbul, Munich and Zurich.” Comparativ. Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und vergleichende Sozialforschung, 32, 3/4, pp. 378-394.
  • “Introduction: The Ottoman Empire and the “Germansphere in the Age of Imperialism – Rethinking Transregional Approaches in Ottoman History.” Comparativ. Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und vergleichende Sozialforschung, 32, 3/4, pp. 323-332. Co-Author: Ulrich Brandenburg
  • “The Issue of Alcohol in Turkey during the 1980s and 1990s.” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerrannée, 151, S. 179-198.
  • “Ermächtigung oder Entmündigung für türkische Feministinnen? Die Aufnahme des Türkischen Frauenbundes in die International Alliance of Women.” traverse 2, pp. 38-49.

Edited Special Issues

  • “A Century of Gender Equality Struggles in Turkey: Feminist History Revisited.” Diyâr. Journal of Ottoman, Turkish and Middle East Studies. Co-editor: Selin Çağatay.
  •  “The Ottoman Empire and “Germansphere” in the Age of Imperialism.” Comparativ. Journal for Global History and Comparative Social Research, 32, 3/4. Co-editor: Ulrich Brandenburg.

Book chapters

  • “Turkey’s Prohibition in 1920: Modernising an Islamic Law.”  Alcohol in the Maghreb and the Middle East since Nineteenth Century: Disputes, Practices and Politics, edited by Elife Biçer-Deveci and Philippe Bourmaud. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan St. Antony’s Series, pp. 23-42.
  • Alcohol, Public Debate, and the Inesacapablity of Islamic Reference. In: Alcohol in the Maghreb and the Middle East since Nineteenth Century: Disputes, Practices, and Politics, edited by Elife Biçer-Deveci and Philippe Bourmaud. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan St. Antony’s Series, pp. 1-20. Co-Author: Philippe Bourmaud.
  • Entangled History als Perspektive auf Frauenbewegungen.  Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte un/diszipliniert? Aktuelle Forschungsansätze, edited by Bumbaris, Alexia; Helfert, Veronika et al.Wien: Studienverlag, pp. 187-207. Co-Author: Edith Siegenthaler.
  • Elife Biçer-Deveci 2014. The Movement of Feminist Ideas: The Case of Kadinlar Dünyasi. A Global Middle East: Mobility, Materiality, and Culture in the Modern Age, 1880-1940, edited by Kozma, Liat; Schayech, Cyrus; Wishnitzer, Avner (Hg.). London, New York: IB Tauris, pp. 347-355.

 

Activities

 

  • Research fellowship of Walter Benjamin Kolleg, Bern, 2022.
  • Research grants of Gerda Henkel Foundation, Oxford, 2022. 
  • SNSF Postdoc. Mobility Grants, 2017-2021, Oxford, Berlin, ETH Zurich 
  • Fellowship at Oxford Centre of History of Medicine, Science and Technology, 2022. 
  • Fellowship at Forum Transregionale Studien Berlin, 2019-2020. 
  • Fellowship at Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, 2017-2019.
  • Fellowship at Deparment for Gender Studies, Central European University, Budapest, 2014.