[Public Diplomacy] ‚Hemşehrilik‘ (fellow-townsmenship) and the venture of Bosnian-Turkish sibling cities (Part 5/8)

As this example shows, being different from the others -- as Muhacir -- does not mean being other than Turkish: it rather means that there are one or more deep societal conflicts about the understanding how to be Turkish, and/or who determines what Turkish and Turkish culture would possibly be. I was told in practically every single interview with Bosniak Muhacirs (and their offspring) in Turkey what they perceive of as the most fundamental difference between themselves and 'the others': they would never -- down "to the seventh or ninth generation" -- ever marry their akraba (= relatives). Cousin marriage -- in the Arabic speaking Middle East described as bint 'amm marriage by anthropologists -- is in Turkey known as akraba evliliği. It is considered to be an eastern practice by Bosniak Muhacir people in Turkey, which corresponds to the fact that in the Balkans, cousin marriage is practically taboo and considered incestuous. Hence, the reactions of many Bosniak Muhacir people to the fact that some of their Anatolian compatriots practice it, often were expressed in extreme disgust. "Bunlar kültürsüz" -- they have no culture -- was often added as an explanatory comment. The importance of this societal conflict, where representatives of both sides can claim their own establishedness and the other side's outsiderness, should not be underestimated in the way how figurative kinship is established through sibling cities (kardeş şehir), either by representatives of the ruling party, or by Muhacir groups: even though representatives of both groups use the same kinship metaphores (like sibling / kardeş) and speak about culture (kültür), they may fundamentally disagree over the meaning and the role of their agnatic or figurative akraba (kinship) -- as the example of akraba evliliği shows. In the same vein, there are fundamental disagreements over the notion of culture, and the way how culture is brokered by official Turkish cultural centers and initiatives on the market of public opinions in the Balkans.

[Migration] Razgovor o iseljavanju muslimanskog stanovništva u Tursku na portalu Algoritam

Tekst je prenesen sa Algoritam.net (LINK). Thomas Schad je doktorand na Slobodnom univerzitetu* u Berlinu gdje izučava iseljavanje muslimanskog stanovništva iz bivše Jugoslavije u Tursku i pitanja vjerskog i nacionalnog identiteta. Kako je Osmansko carstvo postepeno gubilo teritoriju na Balkanu tokom 19. stoljeća, tako su i novonastale balkanse države protjerivale svoje muslimansko stanovništvo. Da li...

[Dissertation] The discoursive ‚running to and fro‘ between Sarajevo and Istanbul: a Bosniak-Turkish communicative figuration in the context of gentrificating the Ottoman hinterland

  Research Question My central research question is how the experience and collective memory of (mostly forced) Muslim refugeeness — known as muhacirlik in Turkish — is interrelated with the rehabilitation and gentrification of the Ottoman past in significant parts of the political and societal sphere of Turkey and the „Western Balkans“ in the past...

[Migration] The Rediscovery of the Balkans? A Bosniak-Turkish Figuration in the Third Space Between Istanbul and Sarajevo

Thomas Schad: The Rediscovery of the Balkans? A Bosniak-Turkish Figuration in the Third Space Between Istanbul and Sarajevo This Working Paper delienates the construction of diasporic spaces by Bosniak communities residing in İstanbul and İzmir. Based on an ongoing multilocal anthropological field research conducted by Thomas Schad, a PhD Candidate in Berlin Graduate School Muslim...

[Articles] From Muslims into Turks? Consensual demographic engineering between Interwar Yugoslavia and Turkey

Thomas Schad: "From Muslims into Turks": Consensual demographic engineering between Interwar Yugoslavia and Turkey This article focuses on the Yugoslav–Turkish agreement on the resettlement of Muslims from the Serb-dominated lands of southern Yugoslavia to Turkey from 1938. The agreement was part of a broader series of state-directed population resettlement projects in the interwar period that...

[Feld] [Migration] Traurige Tropen der Balkanroute: Flucht und Weltverlust der 1990er und 2014

Vor einem Jahr, im Spätherbst 2014, begab ich mich auf eine zweimonatige Forschungsreise durch Bosnien-Herzegowina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Makedonien und Serbien. All diese jungen südosteuropäischen Länder hatten während des kurzen Interregnums der 1990er Jahre einen regelrechten Weltverlust erlitten - zu einer Zeit, in der entscheidende Weichen in meinem Leben gestellt werden sollten. Dieser "Verlust von Welt",...