Kurds of Modern Turkey: Migration, Neoliberalism and Exclusion in Turkish Society (Library of Modern Middle East Studies)

`When, as a result of several confrontations and tensions recently observed in Turkey, Turkish media and other scholars fully recognised the increasing visibility of popular anti-Kurdish sentiments in Turkey, Cenk Saracoglu's work attracted a great deal of attention and became the major point of reference in the discussions of anti-Kurdish sentiments in Turkey. Apart from being an original contribution to the study of the Kurdish question in particular, Saracoglu's work has also the potential to have an influence on the studies on racism, nationalism and xenophobia in general. The concept of "exclusive recognition", which he develops to designate the exclusionary attitudes towards Kurdish migrants that emanate from the urban social relationships, could also be applicable to some other social contexts. In view of this, Saracoglu's work would attract the interest of scholars who study the rise of Islamophobic attitudes in Western Europe...I look forward to purchasing my own copy.'

Dr Daniele Belanger, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, and Canada Research Chair in Population, The University of Western Ontario

`The issue of the increasing resentment in urban areas towards Kurdish migrants from Eastern Anatolia who have been forced to leave their villages has, over the last two decades, received much attention and political commentary, but not careful analysis. Cenk Saracoglu's book provides a breath of fresh air on a topic on which political and academic explorations often find themselves rooted in simplified and polarised analysis. Saracoglu's unique and original research makes a great contribution not just to the understanding of anti-Kurdish attitudes in Turkey in the recent period, but also to a more universal understanding of ethnicism and cultural racism in the context of neoliberalism and forced migration.'

Dr. Sedef Arat-Koe, Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration. Ryerson University, Toronto.

The role of the Kurds in Turkey has long been a controversial issue, although discussion has generally been focused around their political and cultural rights and activities. In this book, Cenk Saracoglu aims to bring a new approach to this contentious subject by shifting attentionto the changing popular image of the Kurds in Turkish cities. He does so by focusing particularly on the ways in which the middle class in Turkish cities develop an exclusionary discourse against the Kurds. Kurds of Modern Turkey investigates the social origins of such a perception by bringing into focus how neoliberal economic policies and Kurdish migration have transformed urban life in Turkey.

For sixty years, Turkey has been experiencing a significant migration movement from Eastern Anatolia to its Western cities. However, since the 1980s, this migration movement has gained some qualitatively different characteristics as a result of the increasing insecurity of the Eastern regions of Turkey on the one hand, and the neoliberal transformation of the Turkish economy on the other. Whilst the former forced a large number of people from Eastern regions to flood into Western cities, the latter dragged them into difficult socio-economic conditions in the post-migration process. One of the outcomes of this situation was the emergence of socio-economically and spatially segregated Kurdish communities in Western cities.

Kurds of Modern Turkey brings into focus one of the social problems that these conditions have created in the social life of Turkish metropolises: ethnicisation of migrants from Eastern Anatolia. In this study, `ethnicisation' refers to the processes through which people living in these cities perceive and construct these migrants as a distinct and homogenous ethnic group, and exclude them through steretypes and stigmas. More concretely, ethnicisation refers to the recognition of the migrants as `Kurdish' and articulation of this `Kurdishness' through some pejorative labels.

Saracoglu argues that the ethnicisation of migrants from Eastern Anatolia and the exclusionary perception of Kurdish migrants in Turkey is a historically specific phenomenon that takes place in urban social life rather than being a manifestation of the conventional nationalist discourses in Turkey. He therefore examines the transformation of social life in Izmir in relation to the neoliberal transformation of the Turkish economy and migrant exodus from Eastern Anatolia. Saracoglu also criticizes the tendencies to reduce the Kurdish question to the political and cultural rights of the Kurds and invites researchers and policy-makers to take into consideration the social-relational dimensions of the Kurdish question.

Cenk Saracoglu teaches Political Science and International Relations at the Middle East Technical University, Northern Cyprus Campus. He holds a PhD from The University of Western Ontario.

Cenk Saraçoglu teaches Political Science and International Relations at the Middle East Technical University, North Cyprus Campus.