« This handbook, the first of its kind, provides a rich overview of the socio-political issues and dynamics impacting Turkey’s diasporic groups and diaspora policymaking.
Turkey constitutes an important case study in the field of diaspora studies with a diaspora population of around 6.5 million. This handbook therefore brings together emerging and established scholars to explore the central issues, actors, and processes relating to Turkey’s diasporic groups and diaspora outreach. Taken together, the historical and contemporary analyses presented in this volume provide readers a multi-lens perspective on the trajectories of Turkey’s diasporic communities and diaspora policymaking in a wide range of regional contexts, including Europe, North America, and Oceania. The handbook comprises six analytical parts:
- Contextualising Turkey’s diasporas: past and present
- Localisation, transnational belongings, and identity
- Governing diasporas
- Micro-spaces and everyday practices
- Cultural production, aesthetics, and creativity
- Country-specific perspectives
The volume offers insights into the debates and processes that structure each of these thematic clusters, but also provides a comprehensive overview of the dynamics shaping Turkey’s diverse diaspora populations today.
The contributions encompass a range of disciplines, including anthropology, history, human geography, political science, international relations, and sociology, and the volume will be vital reading for anyone interested in Turkey, the Middle East, and diasporas. »
Table of Contents
1. Turkey’s Diasporas and Diaspora Policymaking in Flux: An Introduction
Ayca Arkilic and Banu Senay
Part I: Contextualising Turkey’s Diasporas: Past and Present
2. Moving Populations: The Foundations of Diaspora in the Early Republic of Turkey
Christopher Houston and Joost Jongerden
3. From ‘Guest-Workers’ to ‘Muslims’: Representations of Turkish-Origin Migrants in Europe
Ayhan Kaya
4. A History of Turkish Guest Workers in Germany
Jennifer A. Miller
5. The Making of New Diasporic Communities?: Post-2000 Migration from Turkey to Europe
Zeynep Yanaşmayan
6. Migration and Citizenship Regimes in Europe: The Meandering Path to Dual Citizenship in Germany and the Netherlands
Zeynep Kadirbeyoglu
7. The Diaspora Paradox: Methodological Nationalism, Methodological Amnesia, Challenges, and Interventions
Ipek Demir
Part II: Localisation, Transnational Belongings, and Identity
8. Constantinopolitans in the Diaspora of the City: The Global Community of Rum Polites of Istanbul
İlay Romain Örs
9. Enforced Departures, Anxious Arrivals: A Turkish Diaspora in Israel
Karel Valansi
10. The Formation of a Kurdish Diaspora and Transnational Politics
Östen Wahlbeck
11. The Alevi Movement in Europe: A Collective Struggle for Visibility, Rights, and Recognition
Besim Can Zırh
12. The Turkish Muslim Field in Western Europe
Benjamin Bruce
Part III: Governing Diasporas
13. Turkey’s Diaspora Engagement Policies: Past and Present
Damla B. Aksel
14. State-Sponsored Transnational Religious Fields: The Case of the Diyanet
Zana Çitak
15. Turkey’s Diaspora Youth Diplomacy
Banu Senay and Ayca Arkilic
16. Unpacking the State from the Inside Out: Emerging Spaces and Actors of Diaspora Governance in the Border Province of Edirne
Zeynep Kaşlı
17. Non-resident Citizen Voting and Transnational Mobilisation of Political Parties: The Case of Turkey
Inci Öykü Yener-Roderburg
18. Turkish Immigrant-origin Political Parties in Europe: The Case of DENK in the Netherlands
Floris Vermeulen
19. How Has Turkey Re-fashioned its Diaspora Engagement Policy during the COVID-19 Pandemic?
Gizem Kolbaşı-Muyan
Part IV: Micro-spaces and Everyday Practices
20. “Mosques are life itself there”: The Social Lives of Turkish-Sunni Mosques in Germany
Devran Koray Öcal
21. Performance, Advocacy, and Transnational Networks of Solidarity for Turkish-Speaking Queer Migrants in Berlin
Erkan Gürsel
22. Whose Neighbourhood, Whose City, Whose Country? Visible and Invisible Turkish Diasporic Spaces in Berlin and New York City
Annika Marlen Hinze
23. Post-Migration Society and Turkish Football Clubs in Berlin
Oktay Aktan
24. Marriage Trajectories of Turkey-originated Youth in Europe
Anika Liversage
25. Lending Circles: A Solidarity Practice among Migrant Women from Turkey in Germany
Başak Bilecen
Part V: Cultural Production, Aesthetics, and Creativity
26. Turkish Rap Music, Made in Germany: Origins, History, and Identity
Thomas Solomon
27. A Marketplace of Love: Muhabbet and the Construction of European Alevi Imaginaries
Alex Kreger
28. Cinematographic Expressions of Diasporic Experience: Decades of Turkish-German Cinema
Ayça Tunç Cox
29. Writing Home and Selves in Diaspora: Narratives, Texts, and Practices
Özlem Belçim Galip
30. Graphic Politics: Resistance and Community Building through Comics Activism among Turkey’s Diaspora(s)
Can T. Yalçınkaya
31. From Berlin to the Globe: The Transnational Story of Döner Kebab
Maren Möhring
Part VI: Country-Specific Perspectives
32. Turkey’s Diaspora in Germany: A Transnational Community Divided between Transnational Integration and Distant-Nationalism
Yaşar Aydın
33. The ‘Turkish’ Community in France: An Influential Branch of the Diaspora
Samim Akgönül
34. Political Participation and Representation of Dutch Citizens with Roots in Turkey
Nermin Aydemir and Liza Mügge
35. Alevi Kurds in the United Kingdom: Community Formation, Visibility, and Integration
Ümit Çetin and Celia Jenkins
36. United We Divide: Turkey’s Hyper-Polarised Diaspora in the USA
Sultan Tepe and Selin Bengi Gümrükçü
37. Turkey’s Diasporas Down Under: Migration to Australia and New Zealand
Banu Senay and Ayca Arkilic
Ayca Arkilic is Senior Lecturer in Political Science and International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington. Her research interests are state-diaspora relations and Islam in the West. She is the author of Diaspora Diplomacy: The Politics of Turkish Emigration to Europe (2022).
Banu Senay is Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Anthropology at the School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney. She is the author of Beyond Turkey’s Borders: Long-distance Kemalism, State Politics, and the Turkish Diaspora (2013) and Musical Ethics and Islam: The Art of Playing the Ney (2020).