ABSTRACT
This book examines the development of identity politics amongst the Alevis in Europe and Turkey, which simultaneously provided the movement access to different resources and challenged its unity of action.
While some argue that Aleviness is a religious phenomenon, and others claim it is a cultural or a political trend, this book analyzes the various strategies of claim-making and reconstructions of Aleviness as well as responses to the movement by various Turkish and German actors. Drawing on intensive fieldwork, Elise Massicard suggests that because of activists’ many different definitions of Aleviness, the movement is in this sense an "identity movement without an identity."
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |10 pages
Introduction
chapter |22 pages
Complex historical trajectories
part |48 pages
A polymorphous and divided movement
chapter |12 pages
The emergence of the Alevist movement
chapter |9 pages
A conflictual and fragmented movement
chapter |14 pages
Conflicts over meaning
chapter |11 pages
The role played by third parties
part |80 pages
Difficulties in entrenching the movement in Turkey
chapter |12 pages
The emergence and limits of identity politics in Turkey
chapter |16 pages
Insurmountable difficulties in integrating the religious field
chapter |19 pages
Difficulties in establishing a firm political footing
chapter |12 pages
Culture as an outlet
chapter |19 pages
How modes of action have evolved over time
part |47 pages
The localisation of identity