Mustafa Yavaş

Mustafa Yavaş

Sociologist

I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Economy and Society at Johns Hopkins University. I study economic sociology from a cultural, historical, and global perspective, grappling with longstanding questions about the division of labor and well-being, the dynamics of social and symbolic boundaries, and the feedback loop between individual (inter)actions and durable, large-scale structures. In addressing these questions, I strive for analytical clarity and use various methods as necessary, including computational text analysis, network analysis, and simulations as well as interviews and ethnography. Empirically, my research has centered on elite workers: upper-middle-class, professional-managerial workers of prestigious firms—a social stratum I find ripe for sociological insights. You can read more about my research here.

Interests
  • Economic Sociology
  • Work & Occupations
  • High-Skilled Migration
  • Social Networks
  • Computational Sociology
  • Sociological Theory
Education

  • PhD in Sociology, 2020

    Yale University

  • MSc in Industrial Engineering, 2015

    Boğaziçi University

  • BSc in Industrial Engineering, 2011

    Boğaziçi University

White-Collar Blues
The Making of the Transnational Turkish Middle Class

White-Collar Blues examines the rise of a new Turkish upper-middle class and its discontent with work. During the developmentalist era of the 1960s-70s, state-employed doctors, lawyers, and engineers were seen as role models for “making it.” However, with Turkey’s tighter integration into the global economy, the neoliberalism of the post-1980s introduced professional-managerial employees of transnational corporations as the new symbols of success. Focusing on their quality of working life narratives through more than 100 interviews held in Istanbul and New York, I follow these elite workers as they are selected into, survive within, and opt out of corporate careers. Despite their upward mobility, many professionals’ narratives resonate with what I call white-collar blues: burnout and disappointment with demanding yet unfulfilling careers. Extending from the Turkish case, I develop a theory of middle-class alienation that accounts for how middle-class investments in education lead to high hopes, which then clash with the realities of poor work-life balance, low intrinsic satisfaction, and a felt lack of meaning from labor. White-Collar Blues reveals the hidden costs of seeking higher pay and status.

Articles

Work in Progress

  • “Not White, But Still White-Collar: Non-Western Expatriates’ Boundary Work in Dubai,” with Anju M. Paul and Sejin Park. (Draft available)
  • “Feeling at Home in the Global City: Dubai’s Appeal for Non-Western Expatriates,” with Anju M. Paul and Sejin Park. (Draft available)
  • “Visualizing Career Funneling in Top U.S. Universities, 2000 to 2024,” with Amy Binder and Daniel Davis. (Draft available)
  • “Unwinding Career Trajectories: The Aftermath of College-to-Work Transitions in Elite U.S. Higher Education,” with Amy Binder and Daniel Davis. (Data analysis)
  • “Productivity vs. Well-Being: Managerial Discourse on Job Quality and U.S. Corporate Culture since the 1920s.” (Data wrangling)
  • “What Do We Mean by ‘Consent’?” (Data collection)

Teaching Experience

The Certificate in College Teaching Preparation from Yale’s Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, Fall 2019 (granted upon completion of a comprehensive training in effective teaching)

INSTRUCTOR

  • Johns Hopkins University, Center for Economy and Society at SNF Agora Institute

    • AS.197.2XX Good Jobs? Corporate Culture and Quality of Working Life, [planned for Spring 2027]
    • AS.197.330 Social Networks, Fall 2025, Fall 2026

  • New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Research and Public Policy

    • SOCSC-UH 1310 Foundations of Modern Social Thought, Fall 2023, Spring 2024

  • Yale University, Department of Sociology

    • SOC 167S Social Networks and Society, Summer 2019

TEACHING FELLOW

  • Johns Hopkins University, Center for Economy and Society at SNF Agora Institute

    • AS.197.101 Social Theories of the Economy I, Fall 2024
    • AS.197.102 Social Theories of the Economy II, Spring 2025, Spring 2026

  • Yale University, Department of Sociology

    • SOC 160 Methods of Inquiry, Spring 2019
    • SOC 256 Advertising, Consumption and Society, Spring 2017
    • SOC 167 Social Networks and Society, Fall 2016
    • SOC 232 Islamic Social Movements, Spring 2016
    • SOC 151 Foundations of Modern Social Theory, Fall 2015

  • Yale University, School of Management

    • MGT 421E Innovator’s Perspective, Spring 2020 (EMBA course)
    • MGT 665 Principles of Entrepreneurship, Fall 2019 (MBA course)

  • Gateway Community College

    • SOC 665 Principles of Sociology, Spring 2020

  • Bogazici University, Industrial Engineering

    • IE 48F Agent-Based Modeling, Spring 2013
    • IE 533 Systems Theory, Fall 2012 (Graduate)
    • IE 306 System Simulation, Spring 2012