The Europeans who came back: Kurdish refugees in Finland

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which cultural continuity represents the Kurdish immigrants living in Finland and concentrates on those cultural practices and traditions of the Finnish society that seem difficult to be accepted by the Kurdish immigrants. The research questions addressed in this study are as follows: To what extent the new Kurdish refugees, as members of a non-Western culture, remain static and traditional? Do they resent the Nordic values or on the contrary, they try to conform the Finnish values? We will examine whether, at least related to some aspects of the Kurdish tradition, we can speak about the death of the tradition or it is premature to declare that. The present study wants to give an overview of the kind of Kurdish folk tradition that lives in Finland and of the nature of the Kurdish individuals’ relationship to their own cultural experience. We examine if the members of the Kurdish community living in Finland have learnt to act according to the standards of behaviour required by the Finnish society or the practices adopted by them differ from how the people of Finnish background behave. In many cases, adult Kurdish individuals bring their own culture to Finland but it is often the culture of violence that goes with them to the new country. Methodologically I rely on cultural, migration and social life studies in this article. In addition, I attend to identity and family studies.