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In the rising momentum for new and reformulated cultural identities, the Turkish Alevi have also emerged on the scene, demanding due recognition. In this process a number of dramatic events have served as important milestones: the clashes between Sunni and Alevi in Kahramanmaras in 1979 and Corum in 1980, the incendiarism in Sivas in 1992, and the riots in Istanbul (Gaziosmanpasa) in 1995. Less evocative, but in the long run more significant, has been the rising interest in Alevi folklore and religious practices. Questions have also arisen as to what this branch of Islamic heterodoxy represents in terms of old and new identities. In this book, these questions are addressed by some of the most prominent scholars in the field.
As a religious and cultural minority in Turkey, the Alevis have suffered a long history of persecution and discrimination. In the late 1980s they started a movement for the recognition of Alevi identity in both Germany and Turkey. Today, they constitute a significant segment of Germany's Turkish immigrant population. In a departure from the current debate on identity and diaspora, Sökefeld offers a rich account of the emergence and institutionalization of the Alevi movement in Germany, giving particular attention to its politics of recognition within Germany and in a transnational context. The book deftly combines empirical findings with innovative theoretical arguments and addresses current questions of migration, diaspora, transnationalism, and identity.
The book analyses the ongoing struggle for a shared 'Alevi Cultural Heritage'. In these processes, the actors have to negotiate standardisation and plurality cutting across the manifold ethnic and socio-religious differences among Alevis.
Alevis societies; Islamic sects; Turkey; history; social survey.
Alawites; cultural, religious and social perspectives.
This volume discusses how the multifaceted reality of Turkey's Alevis impinges on society and politics in contemporary Turkey. The book provides readers with a vigorous discussion of the origins and history of the Alevis, examines their ethnic identity and cultural representation, as well as appraising their political life and the effect that this had on Turkey's polity, the Turkish Left and the Kurdish National Movement, and upon the emergence of civil society. It analyses Alevi cultural manifestations and even looks at how Alevi diaspora communities in Europe effect Turkey in various ways. The book therefore provides readers with a convenient handbook of an important group that is largely unknown in the West - Turkey's Alevis.
Markus Dressler tells the story of how a number of marginalized socioreligious communities, traditionally and derogatorily referred to as Kizilbas (''Redhead''), captured the attention of the late Ottoman and early Republican Turkish nationalists and were gradually integrated into the newly formulated identity of secular Turkish nationalists.