Who We Are
Research Association for Democracy, Peace and Alternative Politics (DEMOS Research Association) was founded in Ankara in 2015 by social scientists aiming to foreground a collective approach to knowledge production. Ever since its founding, it has conducted research within the broad purview of peace studies and examined examples from Turkey and abroad, adopting a gender perspective while doing so.
DEMOS envisions a society that has achieved societal peace, where all identities are considered equal. It produces and disseminates its research, analyses and translations to this end. DEMOS engages in critical and accessible knowledge production for and with rights subjects, as well as organisations, activists and researchers involved in the struggle for societal peace. It shares this knowledge through print and digital media, podcasts, conferences, workshops, seminars, etc., thus informing rights subjects and grassroots peace organizations of current debates, supporting them, and working towards collective empowerment with stakeholders themselves.
Our Principles
Gender perspective
DEMOS considers gender to be a main axis cutting across all of its areas of work rather than a separate self-contained field of study, and espouses an inclusive gender perspective that seeks to render visible the experiences of women and/or LGBTI+ individuals.
Subject-driven
As per our subject-centred take on a rights-based approach, DEMOS foregrounds the rights-bearing subject in its knowledge production, making space for the varied and intersectional agencies of different subjects and acting in solidarity with rights struggles.
Bottom-up
DEMOS recognises that a lasting peace may only be achieved through a bottom-up perspective starting from the grassroots level and taking into account the established practices of societal groups themselves.