Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Berliner Institut für empirische Integrations- und Migrationsforschung (BIM)

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INFO

Migration, forced displacement, and exile are not just historical episodes but constitutive elements of Kurdish experience. Today, millions of Kurds live outside the homeland, forming one of the largest stateless diasporic communities in the world. This one-day workshop will explore how diaspora shapes Kurdish identity, memory, and political imagination. Bringing together scholars from different disciplines, it will examine how diasporic life across time and space challenges or reinforces attachments to homeland, belonging, and transnational political engagement.

The workshop will feature keynote lectures by Prof. Bahar Baser (Durham University) and Prof. Mehmet Gurses (University of Central Florida), as well as panel discussions and exchanges among researchers. Organized by Dr. Haci Cevik and hosted by BIM, the event is funded by the Einstein Foundation. 

LOCATION

Berlin Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research (BIM)
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Str. 40/41, 4th floor
10117 Berlin

PROGRAM

09:00 – 09:20 – Welcome Remarks
Prof. Dr. Aileen Edele (Director of BIM, Humboldt University of Berlin
Dr. Haci Cevik (Workshop Organizer, BIM, Humboldt University of Berlin)


09:20 – 10:20 – Keynote Lecture
Prof. Bahar Baser (Durham University, UK), Kurdish Diasporas in Transnational Perspective: Between Homeland Politics and New Forms of Belonging


10:20 – 10:40 – Coffee Break

10:40 – 12:30 – Panel I – Displacement and Belonging: Rethinking Kurdish Diasporic Subjectivities


Chair: Alice von Bieberstein

Francesco Ventura: Blurring Ethnic Boundaries: Exploring the Political Agency of Diasporas in Transnational Activism – The Case of the Kurdish Freedom Movement

Inci Öykü Yener-Roderburg: Nonvoter remote partisanship among conflict-generated diasporas: Response of nonvoter Kurds to Turkish elections in Germany

İrfan Aktan: Kurdish Diaspora in Japan: Racist Attacks and the Struggle for Belonging and Identity

Hasret Çetinkaya: Namûs and the Racialised State: On Colonial Governance and Diasporic Subjectivity

Haci Cevik: Carrying Silence, Returning with Voice: Kurdishness Between Konya and the Diaspora

12:30 – 13:30 – Lunch Break

13:30 – 15:30 – Panel II – Transnational Networks, Activism, and Memory in the Kurdish Diaspora


Chair: Nader Talebi

Miki Nose: From Sympathy to Hostility: Tracing Media Discourses, Immigration Policy, and Hate Speech Targeting the Kurdish Community in Japan

Jiyar Aghapouri: Intersectional Dynamics of Gender and Ethnicity in Transnational Activism: Kurdish and Iranian Diasporas during the Woman-Life Freedom Movement

Damla Bayraktar Aksel: Diaspora Engagement and Identity Politics: Parliamentary Framings of the Kurdish Diaspora in Turkey

Rosa Burç and Zeynep Yanaşmayan: Navigating simultaneous racisms in postmigrant Germany:  The politics of in/visibility in the lives of Kurds

Kate Ferguson: ‘It was just, like, normal home life’: Experiences of language brokering in Kurdish families

15:30 – 15:45 – Coffee Break

15:45 – 17:00 – Closing Keynote & Roundtable Discussion

Prof. Mehmet Gurses (Director of Kurdish Political Studies Program, University of Central Florida, US): Re-Centering Kurdish Studies: Diaspora, Statelessness, and the Politics of Knowledge


Open Discussion with all participants

Moderator: Dr. Haci Cevik