Project description
Investigating fractures within the Turkish-speaking population in Berlin
Germany’s Turkish-speaking communities are intricate and diverse, encompassing various ethnicities, religions, socioeconomic classes and political affiliations. Despite living side by side, these communities often have limited interaction and harbour negative sentiments towards each other. Previous research on Turkish-speaking diasporas in Europe, including Kurds, has focused on their connections with Turkey or their integration into host communities, rather than examining their interactions within the group. The EU-funded ARAMIZDA project will explore divisions within the Turkish-speaking population in Berlin, seeking to comprehend how civil society groups can either mitigate or exacerbate these divisions. The project will employ social science methodologies such as ethnographic fieldwork, diaries and interviews to collect comprehensive data and actively involve research participants in decision-making regarding data collection.
Objective
After 60 years of migration in countless waves, Germany’s Turkish-speaking communities are complex and diverse. Routinely lumped together by policymakers, media and the public as “Turks”, they in fact encompass a multitude of ethnicities, religions, classes and political groupings. Though they live side-by-side, they often have little contact and frequently harbour disparaging, even hostile feelings towards each other. ARAMIZDA (meaning “between/among us” in Turkish), draws on methods and theories from a range of disciplines to produce novel, high-quality research on divisions within Berlin’s Turkish-speaking communities. It explores the role civil society organisations play in easing and exacerbating those divides. Previous work on Europe’s large Turkish-speaking diasporas (including Kurds) has been mostly concerned with these groups’ links to Turkey or their integration with host populations. No detailed study has focused explicitly on how they interact with each other. At a time when European policymakers are grappling with the paradox of growing spaces for minority communities but shrinking opportunities for social dialogue, the project will use a mix of social science methods (including ethnographic fieldwork, diaries and interviews) to collect rich data to understand divisions within Turkish-speaking communities. It will foster collaboration with research participants by inviting them to play a role in determining data collection methods and taking an active role in a key non-academic offshoot of the project. This final aspect will take the form of workshop, run in partnership with an anti-polarisation charity, aimed at piloting ways of encouraging diverse groups to engage in dialogue. The findings — which will be widely dispersed through academic and non-academic channels — will be used to advance theories on diversity and inclusion, increase understanding among policymakers and the public, and test practical ways to build more united and resilient societies.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
80798 MUNCHEN
Germany