Alevis in Modern Turkey and the Diaspora

Derya Özkul is a Senior Research Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Her research deals with questions around migration and displacement with a specific focus on Turkey. She is the co-editor of Social Transformation and International Migration (co-authored with Stephen Castles and Malena Arias Cubas 2015, Palgrave). Her work has been published in many journals, including the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Third World Quarterly, Turkish Studies, New Perspectives on Turkey and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Hege Markussen is a researcher in History of Religions at Lund University, Sweden. She is the author of the book Teaching History, Learning Piety: An Alevi Foundation in Contemporary Turkey (2012) and the editor of Alevis and Alevism: Transformed Identities (2005). She is a member of the editorial committee of the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul.

• Introduction1. Alevi Agency in Changing Political ContextsDerya Özkul and Hege MarkussenThe Turkish State and Alevis: Contentions over Recognition2. What is Alevism? Contemporary Debates vis-à-vis Historical and Systematic ConsiderationsMarkus Dressler3. The ‘Alevi Opening’ of the Justice and Development PartyMurat Borovalı and Cemil Boyraz4. ‘Madımak Shall Be Turned Into a Museum’: Negotiating the Sivas Massacre through the Built Environment Eray Çaylı 5. Dersim: The Paradox of Disclosing ‘An Open Secret’Besim Can Zırh6. Thinking of Alevism as a ‘Majority’: Alevi and Sunni Communities in Dersim Ahmet Kerim GültekinAlevis in the Diaspora: Prospects for Recognition 7. From Culture to Religion: Reframing Alevism for Recognition in GermanyMartin Sökefeld8. The Alevi Movement in Germany and Australia: Towards a Transnational MovementDerya Özkul 9. The Alevi Diaspora in France: Changing Relations with the Home and Host StatesAyça Arkılıç10. From a Particularistic Organization to a Federation: Mobilization for Alevi Identity in BritainAyșegül AkdemirBeyond Recognition: Changes in Alevi Rituals, Representation, and Authority11. The Transformation of the Sacred Authority of the Çelebis: The Ulusoy Family in Contemporary Turkey Meral Salman Yıkmış12. Ritual, Musical Performance, and Identity: The Transformation of the Alevi Zakir Ulaş Özdemir13. The Socio-Spatial Meaning of Cemevis on Public Space in Istanbul Erhan Kurtarır14. Mediatized Reproduction of Alevism: Alevi Television Networks and their AudiencesNazlı ÖzkanEpilogue 15. Back to Anatolia: Reflections on Twenty-Five Years of Alevi Research David Shankland16. Concluding Remarks: Alevi Agency and VisibilityHege Markussen