2nd Global Conference
Wednesday 3rd September - Saturday 6th September
2008
Mansfield College, Oxford
Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers
Session 10: Ethnicity and Boundaries of Difference
Chair: Ana Bravo-Moreno
Pidginization Beats Creolization
Jacqueline Knörr
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale), Germany
“Creolization” has often been terminologically equated with “hybridization”, “syncretization” and other notions referring to processes involving cultural mixture. As well, what and who was labeled (a) »creole« has largely been determined by ideological preferences and emic labeling rather than by scientific reasoning. I argue for a more contextualized and concise understanding and use of the “C-Word”*. Examining the social and historical context of creolization in colonial settings and tracing the etymology of »creole« and its meanings through times shows that creolization may have meant “lots of different things at different times” (Stewart 2007) but has nevertheless been distinct in that it involved indigenization and—to varying degrees—(neo-)ethnogenesis of a—more or less—diverse and—in large parts—foreign population. Thus, historical creolization has not been a process aimed at overcoming ethnic identities and boundaries in favor of local varieties of cultural mixture and identification but one aimed at their (re-)construction under new—and often awkward—conditions. Taking into account creolization’s—and creole terminology’s—historical semantics helps unfold the latter’s heuristic potentials for a more systematic and comparative analysis, conceptualization and differentiation of contemporary processes of interaction and mixture in postcolonial societies (and beyond). By connecting the findings concerning these historical semantics with socio-linguistic approaches distinguishing creole and pidgin variants of language, historical creolization’s major contemporary »outcome«—pidginization rather than creolization of culture and identity—comes to light, a process prevalent particularly in such postcolonial societies in which ethnic identification is an important dimension of an individual’s and a group’s social identity while at the same time there is a social and political need for transethnic integration and postcolonial nationhood in society at large.
Should Freedom be Central to our Understanding of Culture?
Krushil Watene
Department of Philosophy School of Philosophical, Anthropological, and Film Studies University of Saint Andrews Scotland, United Kingdom
Does the claim that our cultural identity(ies) should be chosen make sense? Is there any higher value to be placed on a cultural identity that is chosen rather than one that is not? How does a person go about choosing their cultural identity(ies)? Our answers to these questions have implications for how we understand culture, and the prominence we give culture in our lives. I examine Amartya Sen’s views on culture and identity, and assess the benefits and challenges of holding the view that choice in matters of culture and cultural identity are not only possible, but desirable. More specifically, I focus on Sen’s claims for the recognition of our plural identities and the importance of ‘cultural liberty’ in answering the questions set out above. More generally, I attempt to demonstrate how a proponent of the ‘Capability Approach’ could defend the implied understanding of culture as ‘belonging by choice’, and aim to question whether this understanding of culture and identity is acceptable.
Banditry to Disloyalty: The Kurdish Question in Turkey
Mesut Yegen
Department of Sociology, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
My paper addresses the changes in the public image and citizenship status of Kurds of Turkish citizenship in Turkey.
The Kurdish question in Turkey has historically been conceptualized by the Turkish public as a case of tribal endurance and a question of banditry. Accordingly, it was believed that the Kurdish question could have been resolved by undoing the traditional habitat of Kurds. Concomitantly, it was assumed that Kurds lacked a strong sense of ethnic identity and hence could be Turkified without much effort. In other words, they were perceived as Turks-to-be. This explains why Kurds have mostly been subject to assimilationist practices of citizenship within the Turkish Republic, while those citizens who have exhibited a strong sense of their own ethno-religious identity, i.e. Greeks and Armenians, have been subject to discriminatory practices of citizenship. The fact that Kurds have been perceived as Turks-to-be has ‘saved’ them from discrimination up to this point.
However, for some time now, the dictum that “Kurds are Turks-to-be” has not been as satisfying to the Turkish public as it once was. Instead, ethnic Kurds of Turkish citizenship now risk being marked as pseudo-citizens. Similarly, it is becoming common to liken Kurds to non-Muslim citizens. The Turkish public now feels profoundly skeptical as to whether Kurds in Turkey are loyal and qualified citizens of the Republic. Under such conditions, it is plausible that these Turkish Kurds may also become subject to discriminatory practices of citizenship.
In my paper, I will document this evolution of Kurdish public image by contrasting the ways in which the Kurdish question has been portrayed by state officials and the mass media over time. I will show how a fundamental rupture in the Turkish public’s perception of the Kurdish question took place during the early 2000s. Whereas the Kurdish question had previously been described in terms of banditry or tribalism, it is now perceived by many as a question of disloyalty. In my view, this rupture is due principally to international political developments over the last decade. The first such development has been the occupation of Iraq by the US and the establishment of a federal Kurdish state in northern Iraq. The second development has been the implementation of democratic reforms at the behest of the European Union, such as authorizing Kurdish-language media broadcasts in Turkey. The result of these developments for Kurds in Turkey has been a reinforced sense of ethnic identity. Meanwhile, the belief that Kurds could be assimilated toward Turkishness has begun to deteriorate. Kurdish resistance to assimilation has planted suspicions of disloyalty in the minds of many citizens.
I tend to view the aforementioned rupture to mean that the frontiers of the Turkish nation are more unstable than ever. Whereas Kurds have in the past been conceptualized as a part of Turkish nation, their present status has been blurred. This suggests that the conceptual frontiers of the Turkish nation itself will soon be redrawn, and a regional war with transnational impact (the occupation of Iraq) and regional integration efforts (the EU accession process) have had major impacts to this end. There are two possible scenarios, the first of which is that the frontiers of Turkish nation will be redrawn to embrace Kurds without enforcing Turkishness upon them. The second scenario is that these frontiers will be narrowed against them, as they have been against non-Muslim citizens of the Republic, such that Kurds who resist Turkification will be conceptualized as residing outside the borders of the Turkish nation altogether. Accordingly, my paper will conclude with a discussion about the reshaping of [Turkish] national identity in the context of such transnational and regional developments.