Asst. Prof. MUSTAFA ONUR ARUN

Biography

I am a first-generation working-class academic studying, teaching and primarily writing about the question of what makes us a just society.

After gaining my Ph.D. from the University of Manchester/UK, School of Social Sciences – Department of Sociology, I joined the Anadolu University, Turkey which is my home country. Previously, I studied in the Istanbul University/Turkey, Middle East Technical University/Turkey, Ludwig Maximilian Universität München/Germany and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin/Germany. I am currently employed as a lecturer by Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences/Germany and as an assistant professor by the Anadolu University/Turkey.

I am particularly interested in normative and analytical frameworks of theories on distributive justice, (un)deserved inequalities, social and economic background of privilege, dimensions of poverty as well as various forms of (dis)advantage. I approach these topics by drawing on the broad literature of political philosophy and critical sociology. Related to this, I have recently started to focus on the formation of morally unjustifiable privileges and (un)fair distribution of rewards in liberal meritocratic arrangements, with a particular focus on the unequal social and economic costs of achieving the good life for (dis)advantaged social-classes, gender identities and ethnicities.