Bøker i Contemporary Turkey-serien

The Arab 'Alawis constitute a sizable minority in contemporary Turkey. Yet their history and relationship with the evolving Turkish state has been hitherto under-studied. This book charts the history, identity-formation and politics of the Arab 'Alawis of Turkey. It examines the attitudes to the 'Alawis in the early years of the Turkish Republic and the one party era, wherein, as with other religious and ethnic minorities, 'Turkification' policies led to the suppression of 'Alawi identity. It also explores the multi-party period when 'Sunnification' policies lead to further suppression, culminating in further assimilationist policies under the junta of the 1980s. Throughout, the author draws on fieldwork surveys and research in the Turkish state archives to offer various perspectives on the relationship between the 'Alawis and the state, and the evolution of 'Alawi political identity this gave rise to. Produced in association with the British Institute at Ankara

What remains and becomes Armenian in a historically informed moment of increased mobility? Taking an anthropological approach with ethnographic data collected from Turkey and Armenia over the course of almost 10 years, this book focuses on themes of migration, human movement, community-making and the conditions that facilitate mobility and place-making. Looking at case studies ranging from bus and taxi drivers travelling between Armenia and Turkey to undocumented migrants deported from Turkey and now living in Armenian cities and Armenian residents of Istanbul, the author provides a vivid description of contemporary non-Muslim life in Turkey through the lives of Armenian Turkish citizens and undocumented migrants from Armenia, as well as Greek, Jewish and Kurdish communities. The author provides both a critical account of how historical and more contemporary forms of violence and structural discrimination have targeted Armenians in the country, and also focuses on the re-articulations and the appropriation of a sense of belonging by these and other minority communities.

How has the supposedly liberalizing project of police reform in Turkey become central to the increasingly authoritarian regime of Erdogan's AKP Party? Engaging political theory and a gender studies perspective, this book traces the implementation of security sector reform in Turkey, showing how various agents, including Islamist policy-makers, Turkish police and the women's movement in Turkey have contributed to and resisted growing police powers. A critical study which also employs case studies, this is a timely intervention on the ?authoritarian turn' in Turkey and contributes to a growing number of studies of neoliberalism and security in the context of liberal internationalism.Produced in association with the British Institute at Ankara

This book examines the Kurdish movement in the context of total social movement theory. First tracing its origins as a conventionally nationalist movement, Elsa Sen draws upon Alan Touraine's concept of a total social movement to argue that from 2000 to 2015 the Kurds in Turkey pursued a policy of engaging in a peace process, channeling energy into civil society activism and electoral campaigns, and promoting an inclusive understanding of national identity for all the components of Turkish society - not just the Kurds - in a hypothetically fully functioning democracy. Both theoretically informed and drawing upon empirical research in the form of interviews with Kurdish and Turkish activists, non-activists and political representatives, the book provides a new perspective on contemporary Kurdish politics as oscillating between nationalist and social movement paradigms, with the recent decline of the latter due to the resumption of military action by the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers' Party after 2015.

What remains and becomes Armenian in a historically informed moment of increased mobility? Taking an anthropological approach with ethnographic data collected from Turkey and Armenia over the course of almost 10 years, this book focuses on themes of migration, human movement, community-making and the conditions that facilitate mobility and place-making. Looking at case studies ranging from bus and taxi drivers travelling between Armenia and Turkey to undocumented migrants deported from Turkey and now living in Armenian cities and Armenian residents of Istanbul, the author provides a vivid description of contemporary non-Muslim life in Turkey through the lives of Armenian Turkish citizens and undocumented migrants from Armenia, as well as Greek, Jewish and Kurdish communities. The author provides both a critical account of how historical and more contemporary forms of violence and structural discrimination have targeted Armenians in the country, and also focuses on the re-articulations and the appropriation of a sense of belonging by these and other minority communities.

This book examines the period of political violence in Turkey between 12 March 1971 and 12 September 1980. It sets out a close analysis of the tactics used by the various protagonists in the conflict, showing how they took over public institutions, the first of which was the police. This book challenges the myth of a 'strong' Turkish state viewed as authoritative and autonomous from society, instead reflecting a state that was unable to contain the political mobilisation actually taking place. In the book, Benjamin Gourisse analyses the structure, mobilisation, and strategies of antagonistic radical political groups caught up in this dynamic of violence, including the far-left organisations and the Nationalist Movement, comprising the Nationalist Movement Party and its satellite organisations. Gourisse demonstrates that from 1975 to 1980, the state was never "out of play". Quite the contrary, in fact, for its institutions, together with the practices, beliefs, and representations of their members and users, were central to the processes constituting the crisis.