Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/191954

Title

'I feel myself to be a world citizen': negotiating Turkish and Alevi identity in Melbourne

Author(s)

Hopkins, Liza

Abstract

The complexity and heterogeneity of modern multicultural societies can both highlight and obscure the diversity which exists within identity groups. Whilst the majority of the Turkish community in Melbourne are Sunni Muslim, significant groups of ethnically, religiously and linguistically different communities also exist. Recent research with women who participate in activities at the Alevi community centre in Melbourne has brought to light many of the issues which are faced by individuals who are doubly excluded from the mainstream of Australian life and culture as migrants and from the mainstream of Turkish diasporic life through a non-Sunni Islamic religious orientation. For some, but not all of these women there is also an added dimension of difference through embracing their Kurdish ethnicity and linguistic background. Both first and second generation Alevi women use a range of strategies to locate themselves within what one respondent called the 'rose garden' of Australia since the advent of immigrant diversity.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Life and Social Sciences. Institute for Social Research

Source

Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, Vol. 17, no. 3 (2011), pp. 443-456

Publication year

2011

FOR Code(s)

1606 Political Science;  2002 Cultural Studies

Keyword(s)

Alevi;  Identity;  Multiculturalism;  Social groups;  Turks

Publisher

Routledge

ISSN

1350-4630

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2011.558381

Copyright

Copyright © 2011 Taylor & Francis.

Peer reviewed