Zeynep Akçakaya is a historian of agriculture, economy, and environment in the Ottoman Empire of the 19th Century. Her scholarly focus includes global environmental history, Ottoman agricultural history, and rural economies. She received her BA degree (2009), MA degree (2012), and PhD (2019) from the History Department of Boğaziçi University. In her master’s thesis, she focused on agricultural economy and primary education in Thessaloniki during the reign of Abdulhamid II. She completed her PhD with the thesis titled “Agriculture and Agricultural Knowledge in Bursa and Mihaliç (Karacabey) in the Nineteenth Century,” under the co-supervision of Assoc. Prof. Yücel Terzibaşoğlu and Assoc. Prof. Zühre Aksoy. In 2018, she received a scholarship under the ARIT (American Research Institute in Turkey) Turkish Fellowship Program. The author has published articles in Kebikeç, Turkish Historical Review and Agricultural History Review journals. Her recent scholarly focus is on the history of animals and understanding long-term dynamics of human-non-human interactions.
Publications
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"Sheep, natural conditions and large estates (çiftlik) in Mihaliç in the nineteenth century: a reappraisal of çiftlikization" Agricultural History Review, 72(I), , 2024
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"Agricultural Knowledge, Local Environment and the Experts: Silkworm Production in Nineteenth-Century Bursa", Turkish Historical Review, XX , , 2020
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“Seller, Bataklıklar ve Dönüşen Tarım Bilgisi: Bursa ve Mihaliç”, Kebikeç, 45, , 2018