Gunseli Naz Ferel Ucar

Overview

Günseli Naz Ferel (she/they) is a PhD student in Music at City, University of London. Her research centres electronic dance music cultures through the lens of affect theory with a focus on experiences of migration, feelings of belonging and being at home. Some of the areas that she is focused on can be listed as: sound foraging and manipulation, producing sonic stories for live performances and radios, electronic dance musics, sociology of affect and music, opening up space for solidarity in art worlds. Alongside and together with research endeavours, she creates as a sound artist, DJ and radio host. Her previous research experience includes an ethnography focusing on the organisational and discursive dynamics of the underground music organisations in Turkey.

Qualifications

• Master of Arts, Boğaziçi University, Turkey
• Bachelors Degree, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
• Bachelors Degree, Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey

Languages

Turkish (can read, write, speak, understand spoken, peer review)

Title of thesis: Feeling at Home in Music: A Multi-Sited Ethnography of Affect in Electronic Dance Music Scenes in Istanbul, London and Berlin

2023 - October 2027

Summary of research

This research is a multi-sited ethnographic study on the electronic dance music scene in Istanbul and amongst the migrant communities from Turkey, living in Berlin and London. It is focusing on the affective, sensory and embodied experiences of actors with similar geographical backgrounds. By using qualitative methods of autoethnography, participatory sonic methods, ethnographic sound composition and in-depth interviews as the means of gathering data, this research is putting electronic dance music as its main object and focuses on its material qualities in three different scenes. It is a quest to build a social critique that explores the variance in sonic and bodily experiences in relation to the different states of belonging, wellbeing and immigration.

Research students

1^stsupervisor

• Dr Tullis Rennie, Reader

2^ndsupervisor

• Professor Laudan Nooshin, Professor of Music