The word Asulis is composed of the combination of the verbs asel (to say) and lsel (to listen)
in Armenian and commonly used as conversation and chat.
Founded under the Hrant Dink Foundation, ASULIS Discourse, Dialogue, Democracy Laboratory is the first social sciences laboratory in Turkey that struggles against discrimination, works on discourse studies and supports the efforts carried out in this field. Carrying the Media Watch on Hate Speech Project of the Hrant Dink Foundation which has been continuing since 2009 a step further, in its initial phase, the ASULIS will conduct studies on conceptual discussion, education, media, law and politics. Aspiring to be a pioneering, innovative and interdisciplinary structure, it will confront discrimination and discriminatory discourses in various contexts and create a space that serves human rights, democratization, equality and pluralism.
The center is devised as a “laboratory”. With this quality in mind, the center is envisioned to host and/or support academic research and activist movements that share similar principles as well as efforts for raising awareness on subjects such as hate speech, discriminatory discourse, and dangerous discourse, and to conduct trainings in these fields.
ASULIS has been designed to provide open access to everyone who wants to experience “coexistence”, research and advance the culture and language of coexistence, enter into dialogue and contribute to the instilment of democratic values. The laboratory aims to carry out activities on discrimination and discriminatory discourse; explore their reasons; analyze the political, social, democratic, economic, cultural, and similar effects of the discourse on the society and individuals; create awareness on the dimensions of such discourses that pose a threat to coexistence; devise various methods of struggle including counter discourse, and ultimately contribute to a pluralistic and democratic order.
The target group of ASULIS, which will operate with an interdisciplinary approach in numerous different fields ranging from conceptual discussions to education, law to politics, conventional media to new media, is academicians, independent researchers, jurists, labor unions, students, children, youth, educators, teachers, civil society organizations, local governments, politicians, religious officials, journalists, members of the press, social media users and artists. The vision and mission of the ASULIS, which will constitute one of the first examples of social sciences laboratories in Turkey of which there are numerous examples in various parts of the world, have been identified with this comprehensive approach.