This volume, written by specialists, be they political scientists, historians or anthropologists, is a convenient handbook on the origins and history of Turkey's Alevis - an important group that is largely unknown in the West. It examined their ethnic identity, cultural representation, political life, and relations with the Turkish State, The Turkish Left and the Kurdish National Movement.

This book examines the development of identity politics amongst the Alevis in Europe and Turkey, which simultaneously provided the movement access to different resources and challenged its unity of action. While some argue that Aleviness is a religious phenomenon, and others claim it is a cultural or a political trend, this book analyzes the various strategies of claim-making and reconstructions of Aleviness as well as responses to the movement by various Turkish and German actors. Drawing on intensive fieldwork, Elise Massicard suggests that because of activists' many different definitions of Aleviness, the movement is in this sense an "identity movement without an identity."

This book examines the circumstances of the Kurds in 21st century Turkey, under the hegemony of the AKP government. After decades of denial, oppression and conflict, Kurds now assert a more confident presence in Turkey's politics - but does increasing visibility mean a rejection of Turkey? Recording Kurdish voices from Istanbul and DiyarbakA r, Turkey's most important Kurdish-populated cities, this book generates new understandings of Kurdish identity and political aspirations. Highlighting elements of Kurdish identity including Newroz, the Kurdish language, connections to religion, landscape and cross-border ties, it offers a portrait of Kurdish political life in a Turkey increasingly dominated by its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Within the context of Turkey's troubled trajectory towards democratisation, it documents Kurdish narratives of oppression and resistance, and enquires how Kurds reconcile their distinct ethnic identity and citizenship in modern Turkey.

Globalism has sharpened the urban/rural divide in 21st century Turkish elections

A comprehensive overview of the history of Turkey ranging from the earliest Neolithic civilizations, to the establishment of the Republic in 1923, to the present-day tenure of President Erdogan. For travelers or students looking for the story behind the evolution of modern-day Turkey, this informative guide traces this country's history and culture from ancient times through the present day. The first half of this book surveys the centuries up to 1923, with the latter half exploring events since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923. By following the timeline of Turkey's development in clear, chronologically ordered chapters, the work lays out the various civilizations whose remains still sit side by side today. This second edition delves into the full scope of Turkey's events since 2001, covering the leadership of the Justice and Development party, the prime ministry and controversial presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the Gezi Park protests of 2013. The updated content includes a notable figures appendix, glossary, and bibliography that supplies electronic resources for students.

This book examines the circumstances of the Kurds in 21st century Turkey, under the hegemony of the AKP government. After decades of denial, oppression and conflict, Kurds now assert a more confident presence in Turkey's politics - but does increasing visibility mean a rejection of Turkey? Recording Kurdish voices from Istanbul and DiyarbakA r, Turkey's most important Kurdish-populated cities, this book generates new understandings of Kurdish identity and political aspirations. Highlighting elements of Kurdish identity including Newroz, the Kurdish language, connections to religion, landscape and cross-border ties, it offers a portrait of Kurdish political life in a Turkey increasingly dominated by its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Within the context of Turkey's troubled trajectory towards democratisation, it documents Kurdish narratives of oppression and resistance, and enquires how Kurds reconcile their distinct ethnic identity and citizenship in modern Turkey.

The Alevis are a significant minority in Turkey, and now also in the countries of Western Europe. Over the past century, many of them have migrated from rural enclaves on the Anatolian plateau to the great cities of Istanbul and Ankara, and from there to the countries of the European Union. This book asks who are they? How do they construct their identities – now and in the past; in Turkey and in Europe? A range of scholars, writing from sociological, historical, socio-psychological and political perspectives, present analysis and research that shows the Alevi communities grouping and regrouping, defining and redefining – sometimes as an ethnic minority, sometimes as religious groups, sometimes around a political philosophy - contingently responding to circumstances of the Turkish Republic’s political position and to the immigration policies of Western Europe. Contributors consider Alevi roots and cultural practices in their villages of origin; the changes in identity following the migration to the gecekondu shanty towns surrounding the cities of Turkey; the changes consequent on their second diaspora to Germany, the UK, Sweden and other European countries; and the implications of European citizenship for their identity. This collection offers a new and significant contribution to the study of migration and minorities in the wider European context.

Kemal Ataturk's Republic of Turkey was set up in 1923 as a secular state, sweeping political, social, cultural and religious reforms followed. Islam was no longer the official religion of the state, the Sultanate was abolished and all Turkish citizens were declared equal without reference to religion. But though, in Azak's phrase, 'secularism was the central tenet of Kemalism', fear of a resurgent, even fanatical, Islam, continued to haunt the state. Azak's revisionist and original study sets out the struggle between religion and secularism but shows how Ataturk laboured for an idealised 'Turkish Islam' - the 'social cement' of the nation - stripped of superstition and obscurantism and linked to modern science and positivist philosophy. 'Turkish Islam' has retained its traditional forms in the modern state and Ataturk's Mausoleum dominates the capital and continues to inspire a popular, quasi-religious devotion.

Focusing on the situation of both Muslim and non-Muslim religious minorities in the Middle East, this volume offers an analysis of various strategies of resilience and accommodation from a historical as well a contemporary perspective.

Gecekondu settlements-or shanty towns-in large Turkish cities are mostly populated by low-income families, many of which have migrated from the villages of Central Anatolia. The rise of the Islamist party AKP in the 1990s and 2000s had a large impact on how these gecekondus are examined, and how they are perceived to reflect key issues at play in Turkish society: welfare, local identity, religious communities and the rise of civil society. Having lived in one of these neighbourhoods in Ankara, Burcu ?enturk's book sheds light on the experience of gecekondu dwelling in Turkey. By focusing on this aspect, she brings to the fore issues such as urbanisation, modernisation and development, as well as examining the impact these kinds of phenomena have on generation gaps and the role of women in Turkish society. By using the framework of the experience of three generations of gecekondu dwellers, ?enturk is able to chart the emergence, development and the gradual breakdown of social relations, and how the dynamics of these have changed during the course of the latter half of the twentieth century."