Graduate Associate
karacan[at]yorku.ca
Doctoral Student
Graduate Program in Social Anthropology, York University
Research Keywords:
Medical anthropology; herbal medicine; belonging; diaspora; Turkey; Canada
Research Region(s):
Canada, West Asia
Aleyna is a PhD student in the Social Anthropology program at York University. She holds an Honours Bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Her MA research focused on the role of herbalists (aktars) in preserving and transmitting herbal remedy knowledge as well as how this knowledge evolves and becomes medicalized within Istanbul’s contemporary healthscape. Building on this work, she is now interested in how humans form affective relationships with plants and how these connections shape well-being. Her current research explores how herbal knowledge travels, transforms, and endures across new cultural and ecological landscapes.