Dr Melis Cin

Senior Lecturer in Education and Social Justice

Profile

Most of my work lies at the intersection of education, gender, and international development, with a particular focus on the arts, participatory methods, and education for peace. I am especially interested in how creative and socially engaged approaches can reframe education as a space for peacebuilding, gender equality, and resilience.

My research has two main strands. The first explores the role and quality of education in advancing gender equality and peace, unsettling normative policies and practices through a critical, intersectional, and decolonial feminist lens. A central part of this work involves the design and delivery of peace education in conflict-affected contexts. Using socially engaged art interventions, I study local meanings of peace in both formal and informal educational settings and co-create approaches to teaching that are rooted in community knowledge and practices. Alongside this, I collaborate with teachers and curriculum developers across Africa to co-develop and deliver decolonial peace pedagogies, building capacity for educators to integrate local perspectives of peace into classrooms and teacher training.

The second strand brings together arts and humanities methods with international development research. I work with vulnerable populations in the Global South to raise critical consciousness, stimulate community-led change, and create spaces for public deliberation on issues that matter most to them, which includes collaborations on eco-creative pedagogies, where I partner with teachers, eco-artists, and activists to integrate green skills into education through art, and on African-led partnerships, where I work with grassroots organisations, local communities, and pan-African bodies to address the intersecting themes of gender, conflict, and the creative economy.

Career Details

I have previously worked at the Open University (UK), in Turkey and South Africa.

PhD, University of Nottingham

MA, University of Dublin, Trinity College

BA, Gazi University & University College South

Research Overview

My research interests include gender, international development, and peacebuilding in education. I use participatory art methods and feminist theories to address injustices faced by communities such as refugees, conflict-affected groups, or ethnic minorities.

Research Grants

British Academy - Next-Gen Partnerships: Advocacy and sensitisation of equitable research collaboration principles to new actors (2025-2026)

British Council - Eco-Creative Pedagogies: Training the Next Generation of Teachers on Green Skills and Resilience (2025-2026)

AHRC - Building Equitable African-Led Partnerships Across Africa: Setting the Agendas for Gender, Conflict, and Creative Economies (2024-2025)

AHRC - Embedding and Enabling Creative Economy in Marginalised Societies: Creative Skills for Peace (2021-2023)

AHRC GCRF Network Plus - Decolonising Peace Education in Africa (2020-2024)

AHRC GCRF -Youth agency, civic engagement, and sustainable development: Ideas for Southern Africa (2020-2021)

EU Jean Monnet - Women's Development and Europeanisation of Gender Policies (2017-2020)

British Academy – Gender-Responsive Peacebuilding for Intercommunal Conflict Transformation (2020-2021)

AHRC GCRF - Contextualising Peace Education in Nigeria and Zimbabwe: Networking as a Method (2019-2020)

AHRC GCRF Network - PhotoVoice as an educational tool for intercultural learning and peacebuilding between Forcefully Displaced Populations and Host community youth in South Africa, Turkey, Uganda (2019-2020)

AHRC GCRF - Street art to promote representation and epistemic justice among marginalised rural Zimbabwean youth – 2019