Embodied Elders: Space and Subjectivity in the Music of Metin-Kemal Kahraman

Abstract

Using the case of the music group Metin-Kemal Kahraman, this article suggests that studies of hybrid identities and fractured subjectivities highlight the constructedness of presumably original singular identities in Turkey, whether national or counter-national. Addressing the revival of Alevi identity, it argues that a legacy of oral poetry and music acted as a link between the assimilationist generation of the early Republic, the leftist generation of the 1970s and the contemporary generation rediscovering Alevism in the context of neo-liberal globalization. It suggests that, performing in transnational space, Metin-Kemal Kahraman achieve a link to the multicultural space of Dersim in eastern Turkey in their imaginary and thereby to the elders they rejected as youths.