Dissertation Proposal Defense: Historical Traumas, Policies, Identity: The Case of Greek Minorities in Istanbul and Turkish Minorities in Western Thrace

Please join us for a proposal defense by Gul Mescioglu Gur, PhD Candidate

This study seeks to explore how historical discourses, narratives, memories, traumas, and policies construct national identities of Turkish and Greek minority groups in Greece and Turkey. The analysis will examine Turkish and Greek relationships through interactions with community members, the majority population, and with their home nations; to understand how these processes influence community members’ perceptions about the ‘Other’ in their communities and how these processes affect the community members’ daily life. While much of the literature is focused on diplomacy, politics, law and religious issues in the context of minorities in Greece and Turkey within the frames of the ‘policy of reciprocity’, it is not clear how those different aspects of minority issues actually have an impact on the national identity formation of minorities. The focus of this research is on the “human-agency” aspect of the minority issue within these two countries. In this comparative work, I will use interview, focus groups, and observation as qualitative data collection techniques. I will analyze the results through theme analysis and discourse analysis methodologies. My goals in this study are to analyze how historical traumas and memories of minorities, policies implemented on them, and their positions regarding those policies and paste? Construct their identities. The specific aims in this study are to illuminate the meaning of nation, national identity, belongingness, and homeland among minorities, to investigate the reproduction and transmission of social memories between generations and to the influence of policies implemented on minorities, and to understand how minorities position themselves about those policies and their past and how this whole process help constructing their identities.