Migration, Displacement and Emerging Community Experiences: Contemporary Turkey

This course explores Anatolia as a dynamic territory of transit, through a critical lens. We will study communities that have been formed through internal and international migration, displacement, and Otherness that forces people to organize along identity lines, resulting in emerging diverse communities within Turkey. We will look briefly at Anatolia’s past and focus primarily on contemporary Turkey. We will compare the reality of the population with the rhetoric and performance of ruling powers pertaining to indigenous status and belonging. Students will leave this course with a comprehensive understanding of population and identity formation in contemporary Turkey as they relate to migration and displacement.