Network for the Study of Environmental History of Turkey

The Network for the Study of Environmental History of Turkey (NEHT) is hosted by the Department of Near Eastern Studies (Institut für Orientalistik) of the University of Vienna.

The NEHT is a collection of researchers from institutions in Turkey, Europe, and beyond, both early career and experienced, identifying themselves or showing an interest in the field of Ottoman and post-Ottoman environmental history. It is the first and only (so far) platform for cooperation and exchange of information among environmental historians of Turkey from all around the world.

As an international and interdisciplinary research platform, the primary goal of the network is to bring researchers in diverse disciplines focusing on different aspects of Ottoman and Turkish environmental history together and to contribute to the understanding of the history of Turkey from the perspective of environmental history.

Our network was eventually contextualized and formalized during the meeting “Environmental History of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey,” organized by the TürkeiEuropaZentrum at the Asien-Afrika-Institut of University of Hamburg on 27-28 October 2017. The second meeting took place at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara on 5-6 September 2019. The third meeting will take place at the University of Vienna on 16-18 September 2021.

Our network uses social media tools to communicate: It has a Facebook page (448 subscribers) and a Twitter account (771 followers) – as of February 2021. Besides, it publishes a quarterly newsletter to 149 (as of February 2021) subscribers every three months.