Turkish Minority Research Articles

Cultural concerns: How valuing social-image shapes social emotion

ABSTRACTI present a conceptual and methodological approach that views emotion as immersed in culture and driven by cultural concerns. These cultural concerns include a desire for positive social-image (e.g., honor), as well as values regarding preferred relations between the individual and the group (e.g., vertical individualism and horizontal collectivism). The research I present covers a wide range of emotions about being valued (e.g., pride and happiness) and devalued (e.g., sadness, fear, and shame) by others in a wide range of cultures, with a special focus on understudied populations in psychology (e.g., Pakistanis; Turkish, Moroccan, and Bangladeshi cultural minorities in Europe; and Muslim minorities in the U.S. and Europe). This research also covers diverse aspects of emotions, including appraisal, motivations, and actions.

"Rosy, White, and Clean Pages of History": Jojo Eskenazi's "Moiz Plays" and the Politics of Contemporary Jewish Theatre in Turkey

"Rosy, White, and Clean Pages of History":Jojo Eskenazi's "Moiz Plays" and the Politics of Contemporary Jewish Theatre in Turkey İlker Hepkaner (bio) Introduction Approximately 18,000 Jews currently live in Turkey, comprising one of the largest Jewish populations living within a Muslim majority society.1 In this community, there are multiple amateur theatre groups, either housed in clubs open only to Jewish community members based in İstanbul or staging their plays under the auspices of the Jewish Community of Turkey (Türkiye Musevi Cemaati)2 and the Chief Rabbinate. Despite its popularity among members of the community, contemporary Jewish theatre in Turkey has received little attention from scholars working on theatre in Turkey or on Jewish identity in theatre in national and transnational contexts. Among the Jewish theatre groups' activities, Jojo Eskenazi's comedic "Moiz plays" stand out for their consistent performance schedule and the support they receive from Turkey's Jewish community leaders and members, particularly for their political messages and community-building function.3 These plays are centered around İstanbullu Manifaturacı Moiz (Moiz the Draper from Istanbul), played by Eskenazi himself, and Moiz's wife Kleret, played by Fani Bonofiyel. Analysis of the texts, recorded performances, playbills, and introductory remarks by the organizers before performances of these plays unravels their wider functionality within the Jewish community and the theatre scene in Turkey.4 Moiz plays staged in the last twenty years crystallize [End Page 323] how Jews of Turkey engage with international Jewish, Turkish-national, and communal identity discourses; partake in the contemporary efforts of preserving Judeo-Spanish through bilingual performances; and contribute to transnational connections among Jews of Turkey in Turkey and Israel.5 When Moiz plays are analyzed in relation to the cultural context in Turkey and not as isolated cultural products only by/about/for the Jewish community in Turkey, the contemporary Jewish amateur theatre proves to be an important part of Turkey's theatre scene, a scene which needs reframing outside mainstream institutions and practices—that is, only consisting of performances in the Turkish language or staged by state institutions. Focusing on Jews' transition from an Ottoman millet (confession-based community) to a modern Turkish minority or their emigration to Europe, the Americas, and Israel, contemporary studies have investigated Jews' self-positioning within the modern Turkish context from a state-minority relations perspective. Jews' cultural production in Turkey has been analyzed only as those of a minority, almost completely isolated from the majority cultural context, not in relation to and as part of the context that is dominated by the Sunni-Turkish majority's cultural conventions.6 Discussing the political repercussions of studying "Arab-Jews," Shohat argues that segregating Middle Eastern Jewish cultures from their local contexts has served Eurocentric and Zionist interpretations of history, especially in the light of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East. By selectively reading Judeo-Muslim histories through a "pogromatic" discourse which only focuses on contentions and not on collaboration between Jews and Muslims, the Euro-Israeli historiography has subsumed the Jewish histories in the Muslim lands to a "universal" Jewish experience defined by the European Jews' history.7 Such discourse rejects "an Arab and Muslim context for Jewish institutions, identities, and histories."8 Instead of these deliberate distortions, Shohat argues for investigating Jewish history and culture in the Middle East in relation to their Muslim majority contexts. Such an approach based on relationality resists glorifying Judeo-Muslim history, which whitewashes Jewish-Muslim relations and is often used for nationalistic interpretations of history.9 Not dismembering Jewish culture and history from its Muslim contexts reveals this community's own positionality in Turkish culture, which needs to be analyzed apart from Eurocentric imaginations or nationalistic impulses projected onto it. [End Page 324] In this light, contemporary Jewish theatre should be considered as part of Türkiye Tiyatrosu (Theatre of Turkey) a theatre scene which includes more than plays and performances staged only for the Turkish-speaking majority. There are multiple examples of "Theatre of Turkey" which are multilingual and multiethnic yet engaged with the mainstream Turkish theatre scene. In the late 2000s, the Istanbul cultural scene witnessed the blooming of theatre companies and performances outside the...

Responses to stigmatisation and boundary making: destigmatisation strategies of Turks in Germany

ABSTRACTThis article combines the concept of responses to stigmatisation with the boundary making approach. It differentiates situational and discursive destigmatisation strategies of ethnic minority members. The analysis of in-depth interviews with Turkish residents of Germany yields four dominant response types at the level of action: (1) confronting, (2) deemphasising, and (3) ignoring/avoiding. While these responses vary situationally, the fourth category of (4) boundary work subsumes discursive strategies of boundary making and boundary blurring. This is the first systematic analysis of Turkish minority members’ destigmatisation strategies. The analysis reveals personal and situational prerequisites of particular destigmatisation strategies. The article discusses commonalities and differences between Turks in Germany and ethnic minorities elsewhere.

Feasibility of including patients with migration background in a structured heart failure management programme: A prospective case-control study exemplarily on Turkish migrants.

AimsStructured management programmes deliver optimized care in heart failure patients and improve outcome. We examined the feasibility of including patients with migration background speaking little or no German in a heart failure management programme.Methods and resultsAfter adaption of script material and staff to Turkish language we aimed to recruit 300 Turkish and 300 German (control group) patients within 18 months using the operational basis of a local heart failure management programme for screening, contact and inclusion.Of 488 and 1,055 eligible Turkish and German patients identified through screening, 165 Turkish (34%) and 335 German (32%) patients consented on participation (p = 0.46). General practitioners contributed significantly more of the Turkish (84%) than of the German patients (16%, p<0.001). Contact attempts by programme staff were significantly less successful in Turkish (52%) than in German patients (60%, p = 0.005) due to significantly higher rate of missing phone numbers (36% vs 25%), invalid address data (28% vs 7%) and being unreachable by phone more frequently (39% vs 26%, all p<0.001). Consent rate was significantly higher in successfully contacted Turkish (63%) compared to German patients (50%, p<0.001).ConclusionThe inclusion of Turkish minority patients into a heart failure management programme is feasible with higher consent rate than in Germans. However, effort is high due to inherent logistic adaptions and barriers in identification and contacting of patients.Trial registrationDRKS00007780

Gender differences in labour market integration trajectories of recently arrived migrants in the Netherlands

ABSTRACTThis study investigates gender differences in recently arrived migrants’ labour market activity and occupational status both shortly after arrival and with increasing length of stay. We examine the role of education, household composition and traditional gender role values by estimating multi-group multilevel models based on three waves of the New Immigrants to the Netherlands Survey. In line with findings regarding gender gaps in labour market behaviour, recent female migrants are less active on labour market than their male counterparts, and we observe a clear motherhood penalty and fatherhood premium on the number of hours worked. Men and women show only marginal differences in their occupational statuses. Changes over time do not differ between men and women, indicating persistent gender inequality in labour market attainment. Moreover, interesting differences between the nationalities were found. Polish migrants show the highest activity levels and lowest occupational status, also when compared to Bulgarians. Spanish migrants hold the highest occupational statuses. Recent Turkish migrants seem to be better integrated and show fewer gender differences than the more established Turkish minority in the Netherlands.

Forgotten Three Great Political Assassinations Towards Turkish Minority in Bulgaria

After leaving the administration of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish population in Bulgaria had encountered a variety of oppression, intimidation and displacement methods during the separation process during the Ottoman Russian War of 1877- 1878 and later on. The situation of Turkey, which was relatively good in the early years of the Republic of Turkey after World War I, began to deteriorate from the late 1920s on account of the hostile aggressive attitudes of the ultra- nationalist Bulgarian organizations. In this period, especially the leaders of the Turkish minority were targeted and numerous assassinations took place. However, when we look at today, about most of these murders have not received enough information. It was possible to conduct research about three assassinations we investigated in our work, because of the presence of archival materials and, in part, their reflection on the press. In addition, these assassinations took place in the Rhodopes region in southern Bulgaria, where the mojority of the Turkish population is located. Hasan and Fevzi Beyler, who are in the position of the head of the township, and Hüseyin Galibov a deputy in the Bulgarian parliament of the time, were tried to be illuminated in the direction of the sources of return.

Intergroup contact and minority group empowerment: The perspective of Roma and non‐Roma adolescents in Macedonia

AbstractThis study focused on the endorsement of Roma empowerment in Macedonia among Roma (N = 187) and non‐Roma (Macedonian, Albanian, and Turkish; N = 627) adolescents. Using structural equation modelling, we examined the mediating roles of out‐group feelings, negative Roma stereotypes, and perceived social injustice towards the Roma in the association between out‐group contact and endorsement of Roma empowerment. In line with the prejudice reduction model, we found for the non‐Roma sample that the endorsement of Roma empowerment was higher among adolescents who had more frequent (as well as more positive) contact with Roma, and this was due to more positive feelings towards the Roma, less negative Roma stereotypes, and, in the case of Albanian and Turkish minorities, more perceived social injustice towards the Roma. There was little evidence for the collective action approach in the Roma sample.

Collective victimhood and acknowledgement of outgroup suffering across history: Majority and minority perspectives

AbstractThis paper examines how temporally differentiated representations of ingroup victimhood and acknowledgment of outgroup suffering relate to present intergroup attitudes. A mixed‐methods research was conducted in Bulgaria where both the ethnic majority and the Bulgarian Turkish minority can be viewed as victims and perpetrators in the past. Multigroup path models (Study 1) revealed that for the majority (N = 192) collective victimhood was positively related to social distance through reduced forgiveness and through reduced collective guilt for a different historical era. Acknowledgment of outgroup suffering, in turn, was associated with reduced social distance through heightened guilt and through forgiveness for another era. Among the Bulgarian Turks (N = 160), the result pattern differed. Collective victimhood was unrelated to forgiveness. Moreover, the relationship between guilt and social distance was positive. Semi‐directive interviews (Study 2) revealed different meanings attributed to the events by the two groups. The impact of intertwined historical representations on current‐day prejudice is discussed in light of power asymmetry between groups.

Gevoelens van etnische vooroordelen bij Turkse Vlamingen: in welke mate zijn ze gelinkt aan ouderlijke voorkeuren in partnerkeuze?

The aim of the present study is twofold. First, we assess the experience of interethnic social contact from the perspective of the Turkish ethnic minority in Flanders. We evaluate to which extent Turkish ethnic minority members experience ethnic prejudice, and study the effect of socio-demographic characteristics. Secondly, we focus on attitudes concerning a specific case of interethnic social contact, partner selection. We assess the effect of experiencing ethnic prejudice on the preferences parents have concerning the ethnicity of the future partner of their children. Using data from the Sexpert-study (n = 430) and applying linear regression models, results illustrate that (1) ethnic prejudge is very common in the lives of Turkish minorities in Flanders. (2) Men, respondents with a lower socio-economic status and partner migrants are especially at risk to experience prejudice. In the second part, using multinomial logistic regression models on the same dataset, we show that (1) half of the parents prefer ethnic homogeneous partnerships, and show no openness towards Belgian partners. Nevertheless, openness towards interethnic partnerships is found among more than 25 percent of the parents. The rest has no distinct preference concerning ethnic homogamy, nor interethnic partnerships. (2) Parents who experience ethnic prejudice have higher odds to prefer an ethnic homogeneous partnership and to show no openness towards Belgian partners. (3) Additionally, in the case of daughters, parents with higher educational attainment are more likely to be open towards an interethnic partnership than lower educated parents.

Book review: Vital Memory and Affect: Living with a Difficult Past

Ozlem Koksal’s book focuses on the representation of minorities in Turkish cinema from a transnational perspective. The book examines recent filmic explorations of the three large minorities that disappeared from Turkey after World War I and with the establishment of Turkish Republic in the 1920s: the Greek, Jewish and Armenian minorities. The book also looks at films that depict a Muslim ethnic minority community, the Kurds, who were suppressed until the 1990s and found their cinematic representation in post-1990 cinema in Turkey. Koksal calls for the definition of a new ‘aesthetics of displacement’ through the selection of post-1990 transnational films on Turkish minorities that focus on remembering the moves from the home of the past to the home of the present.

Integracija v švicarsko družbo: primer Meral Kureyshi

Meral Kureyshi živi v Bernu in je bila lani s svojim prvencem, romanom Elefanten im Garten (Sloni na vrtu), nominirana za švicarsko književno nagrado Schweizer Buchpreis. Meral Kureyshi se je rodila leta 1983 v nekdanji Jugoslaviji, v Prizrenu na Kosovu, kot pripadnica turške manjšine in je s starši leta 1992 prišla v Švico. V svojem romanu tematizira univerzalno zgodbo družine, ki je zapustila rodni multikulturni Prizren in se s trebuhom za kruhom podala v Švico. Avtorica v romanu slikovito in neolepšano prikazuje razmere na področju priseljevanja v Švico, ki v njeni »prvi domovini«, na Kosovu, velja za »obljubljeno« deželo, medtem ko je resničnost za priseljence vse prej kot rožnata. Prispevek na podlagi romana obravnava položaj migrantov v tuji deželi in se sprašuje, ali smo sposobni v novih razmerah, v katerih se je v zadnjih letih znašla Evropa, razumeti, da sta različnost in raznolikost ne le nepremostljivi oviri, temveč predvsem izkušnja, ki nas bogati, iz katere se lahko veliko naučimo in ustvarimo strpnejši svet.

The ties that bind the diaspora to Turkey and Europe during the Gezi protests

The Gezi Park demonstrations across Turkey in the early summer of 2013 offered another opportunity to examine the role played by social media in a social movement. This survey of 967 ethnic (Turkish or Kurdish) minorities living in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany focuses on attitudes and behaviors alongside uses of offline and online networks to make connections with others during and after Gezi. We investigate whether the respondents living in the diaspora experienced communication-generated social capital. We also examine whether the social capital already built through lives spent in Europe, where connections to majority populations had been forged, was at least temporarily reversed through a process of re-bonding, as ethnic minorities turned their attention and loyalty to the social movement in Turkey.

TURKISH MINORITY IN BULGARIA: MAIN STAGES OF SOCIAL INTEGRATION

The Balkan region, known as the «powder keg of Europe», is one of the most controversial regions with complex tangle of ethnic groups and religions. The problem of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria has its roots directly in the creation of the Bulgarian nation-state in 1878. Initially, the Turks had sufficiently broad rights, but after World War II, their situation has steadily deteriorated. The reasons are linked with the international situation of Cold War — where Bulgaria and Turkey belonged to opposing blocs — and internal political and ideological factors. Broad criticism on the part of the international community has undergone so called «Revival Process» — a large-scale campaign of assimilation of Turkish and Muslim population in Bulgaria 1984–1989. Today Turkish ethnic group enjoys broad rights in education, religion,politically represented in parliament and is an integral part of Bulgarian society. In terms of the ethnic conflicts in the Balkans of the 1990s, Bulgaria has demonstrated striking example of the successful integration of ethnic minorities into society.

Learning to live with “Languages”

Abstract In this paper I describe how a group of speakers participating in a longitudinal study develop patterns of linguistic practices as well as norms for their use over time. The group at issue consists of speakers with a Turkish minority background living in Denmark. Data were collected from this group during their nine years of compulsory school and again in their mid-twenties. From a very early age this group of speakers acquires linguistic repertoires which involve features associated with several “languages”, of which the most influential are Turkish and Danish. I will show how they develop ways of employing large parts of those repertoires in their languaging practices and how at the same time they increasingly express an awareness of the fact that they are living in languagised world. I will do so by analysing instances where the participants explicitly refer to languages in peer group interactions, discuss observations concerning patterns of languaging in the same types of interactions, and consider the development of both phenomena.

Acculturation orientations mediate the link between religious identity and adjustment of Turkish-Bulgarian and Turkish-German adolescents.

There is a growing recognition of the need to examine religiousness and conduct research on its influence on acculturation and adjustment among ethnic minorities (Güngör et al. in Int J Behav Dev 36:367–373, 2012. doi:10.1177/0165025412448357). The present study compares Turkish minority youth in Bulgaria and Germany by examining relationships among religious identity, acculturation orientations (i.e., cultural maintenance and adoption) and acculturation outcomes (i.e., life satisfaction and socio-cultural adjustment to the Turkish and mainstream cultures). Participants were 161 youth in Bulgaria and 155 in Germany who completed measures on religious identity, acculturation orientations and adjustment. Results revealed that religious identity and Turkish culture maintenance are more important for Turkish-German, than for Turkish-Bulgarian youth. A multigroup path model showed that for both samples acculturation orientations partially mediated the link between religious identity and adjustment to the Turkish culture, whereas religious identity was directly related both to adjustment to the mainstream culture and to life satisfaction. Findings highlight the centrality of religious identity and Turkish domains of acculturation for positive adjustment outcomes for Turkish youth in Bulgaria and Germany.

When School and Family Convey Different Cultural Messages: The Experience of Turkish Minority Group Members in France

The present studies aim to compare the cultural values promoted by the French educational system and the Turkish families living in France to their youngsters. Because of their collectivist background Turkish immigrants may convey less individualistic values to their children compared to French parents and teachers. However, Turkish students may become more individualistic as they are socialized in the school system. In study 1 (N = 119), French school teachers, French parents, and Turkish-origin parents had to resolve six dilemmas by choosing either an individualistic or a collectivistic response-option. As expected, French teachers emphasized individualism more than Turkish parents, but not more than French parents. In Study 2 (N = 159), similar dilemmas were presented to French and Turkish-origin pupils. In elementary school, Turkish children were less individualistic than French-born children, but this gap was reduced in high school.

Experiences of Otherness and Practices of Othering

The present study aims to explore the experiences of marginalization amongst young Turkish migrants in the UK. It pays particular attention to the ways in which marginalizing experiences and practices are reproduced, normalized and resisted across different ethnic/national contexts, namely, in encounters with the British/English majority, mainland Turks and other diaspora members. A narrative-based analysis of semi-structured interviews reveals that participants do not experience to be sharing an equal status with British/English majority despite their strong attachments to the UK, and that their experiences of otherness are also extended to their relationships with mainland Turks in Turkey and encounters in the diasporic community. However, Turkish migrant identity is not constructed as a fixed position, that of an inferior other. Rather depending on the net of power relationships characterizing the encounters, being of the Turkish minority also becomes a base for marginalizing others and is marginalized by participants themselves.

MNIEJSZOĝû TURECKA W NIEMCZECH. PROBLEMY Z ASYMILACJĄ

Turkish minority in Germany is currently the largest group of foreigners who live in Germany. At the same time, it is the least assimilated with German society and does not have the status of a national minority. This raises many conflicts between the Turkish-Germans and reflected on the relations between Turkey and Germany. Turks constantly have a sense of cultural diversity and feel discriminated against, while the Germans are worried about their own identity and monoethnicity. This situation has its historical background, when tempted by the prospect of a better life Turks massively came to Germany, and the Germans were looking for cheap and uneducated workforce. Unfortunately, the stereotypical approach to presenting both sides today, none of which shows no willingness to integrate. In this article author’s attempt was made to present the internal problems of the Turkish minority, who resides in Germany, its role in politics, education levels, as well as the behavior of German society and politics assimilation of Germany. Key words: Turkey; Germany; national minority; policy of assimilation; integration; European Union.

Mobilising mosques? The role of service attendance for political participation of Turkish and Moroccan minorities in the Netherlands

ABSTRACTReligious service attendance has been identified as an important source of political participation among Christians and Muslims in the USA. In Europe, where religion is seen as a barrier rather than a bridge to Muslims’ integration, the role of mosque attendance for the political participation of Muslims remains understudied. This study asks whether the politically mobilizing role of service attendance extends to Muslim minorities in Europe. We examine direct and indirect effects of the frequency of religious service attendance on organizational participation, political trust and voting intentions among large nationwide samples of Turkish and Moroccan minorities in the Netherlands using multi-group structural equation modelling. Our results show that service attendance relates positively to engagement in both co-ethnic and mainstream organizations. These two forms of civic engagement translate into a greater intention to vote among Turks, but not Moroccans.

Living with an accent: a sociological analysis of linguistic strategies of immigrant youth in Canada

This research explores the cultural and linguistic strategies of immigrant youth to negotiate inclusion/exclusion, including language discrimination in Vancouver, Canada. My theoretical framework draws upon the Arendtian notions of ‘public space’, and ‘action and speech’ as well as Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘symbolic violence’ and ‘habitus’. My methodology is a critical qualitative approach. Fourteen immigrant youth, aged 15–25, were involved in this research. The findings of this study indicate that unlike second-generation immigrants, first-generation immigrant youth face cultural and linguistic challenges. Non-recognition of youths’ distinct linguistic and social capitals, the imposition of official languages and the regulation of the education and language market according to the dominant linguistic norms include forms of discrimination against Turkish minority youth in Canada. Taken together, the findings suggest that immigrant youths’ cultural and linguistic experiences of inclusion and exclusion cannot be dissociated from the wider politics of the nation-state, popular hegemony and social inequalities in the host society.