Afro-Turks: Representation, Tradition and Identity / Afro-Türkler: Temsiliyet, Gelenek ve Kimlik

Abstract

This study problematizes how representations and traditions relate to identity with a particular focus on Afro-Turks. Analyzing identity along with representation and tradition, this study traces the history of slavery while constructing the bonds of Afro-Turk community’s past and present. Drawing on a one-year ethnographic research based on participant observation and in-depth interviews conducted in Hasköy, Yeniçiftlik and Çırpı villages of İzmir, which culminated in a master’s thesis, the present work questions the discrimination in representations, examines the historical relationship between the African diaspora and slavery, and explores changes in community’s traditions. Given the fact that and community-specifc traditions faded away, not a uniting ethno-cultural identity but kinship relations laden with the symbolic meaning of skin colour have attained a determining role in the process of identity construction among Afro-Turks. It is argued that the etnho-cultural identity of Afro-Turks has been (re)constructed and by the African Culture, Solidarity and Cooperation Association’s mission of revitalizing traditions and collective memory.

Keywords

• afro-turks
• representation
• tradition
• reconstruction of tradition
• identity
• collective memory