FROM VICTIM DIASPORA TO TRANSBORDER CITIZENSHIP? Diaspora formation and transnational relations among Kurds in France and Sweden
My initial knowledge of the Kurds in France dates back to the years 1997–98, when I traveled from Sweden to Provence, in France, in order to study political science at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Aix-en-Provence. During my sojourn there I realized that the majority of the Kurds in this part of France originated from a particular Kurdish rural area in Turkey, called Sarhad. They lived and developed their diasporic organizations in a number of cities and localities of the French Bouchesdu-Rhône, including Marseille, Marignane, Vitrolles, Aubagne and Aixen-Provence. Sarhadi Kurds, who mostly were asylum seekers, worked primarily in the building and restaurant trades, more often than not in harsh conditions. Moreover, I became gradually conscious that, like many other diasporan Kurds, Sarhadi Kurds – no matter where they are – regularly evoke the negative experiences of oppression and suffering in their societies of origin, which not only reinforced their sense of being victims but also considerably impeded the emergence of positive diaspora discourses.
At that time, I was wondering whether the victim diaspora discourse (Cohen 1995, 1996) that was much in evidence among the Kurds was an invention of diasporan Kurds themselves or, to the contrary, was strongly rooted in genuine repression of the Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria in the course of 20th century, and enhanced by negative memories of migration and by problems of social exclusion and discrimination that the Kurds experienced in their new societies. As my general knowledge of the Sarhadi Kurds increased during my stay in the region of Marseille, I wondered whether a common sense of victimhood constituted the major motive for diasporan Kurds in Sweden and France to maintain a diasporic identity, or whether other experiences and practices not only counteracted the Kurds’ victim diaspora discourse but also affected their transnational practices and the process of diaspora formation. If the latter, the question would be how these other trajectories and occurrences gave rise to various action modes that diasporan Kurds in France and Sweden adopted.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS / viii INTRODUCTION / 1 THE DISCOURSE OF VICTIM DIASPORA AMONG THE KURDS AND CHALLENGING PROSPECTS / 2 1. DIASPORA, TRANSNATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND TRANSBORDER CITIZENSHIP: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS / 11 THE NOTION OF DIASPORA: AN INTRODUCTION / 12 DIASPORA AS A SITE OF CONSCIOUSNESS / 15 CONSTITUTIVE ELEMENTS OF DIASPORA: A CRITICAL READING / 16 Dispersion: nomadic or forced? / 17 Homeland orientation: between teleology of return and multilocality? / 19 Boundary maintenance: vis-à-vis whom and what? / 22 TRANSNATIONALISM: A GENERAL VIEW / 24 THE STRUCTURE OF TRANSNATIONAL CORRELATION: SOCIAL FIELDS AND SPACES / 29 EMERGENCE OF TRANSMIGRANTS / 31 CROSS-BORDERING ECONOMIC PRACTICES AMONG TRANSNATIONAL AGENCIES IN THE CAPITAL WORLD / 33 DIASPORAN AND TRANSNATIONAL ASSABIYYA / 35 DIASPORIC IDENTITY MAKING AND TRANSNATIONAL CONNECTIONS ONLINE AND ON AIR / 36 THE NOTION OF TRANSBORDER CITIZENSHIP / 38 LIMITS OF THE CONCEPT OF TRANSBORDER CITIZENSHIP / 42 SUMMARIZING THEORETICAL OUTCOMES / 44
2. COMPARATIVE METHODOLOGY, ETHNOGRAPHY AND THE DILEMMA OF INSIDERNESS: METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS / 46 DIASPORAN KURDS IN TWO DIFFERENT FIELDS: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH / 46 OBSERVING KURDISH DIASPORA THROUGH ETHNOGRAPHY / 50 ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELDWORK AMONG DIASPORAN KURDS IN SWEDEN AND FRANCE / 52 INTERVIEW AND OBSERVATION, AND EXISTING CHALLENGES / 53 CYBER-ETHNOGRAPHY AMONG THE KURDS / 57 TIME AND MODE OF ETHNOGRAPHY / 59 DILEMMA OF INSIDERNESS AND ETHICAL ASPECTS / 60
3. FORCED MIGRATION AND THE FORMATION OF THE KURDISH DIASPORA: A GENERAL VIEW / 64 PERCEIVING THE KURDISH IDENTITY BEYOND THE NOTION OF “ORIGIN” AND THE KURDISH VICTIM DIASPORA DISCOURSE / 65 THE RISE OF KURDISH NATIONALISM AND FORCED MIGRATION IN KURDISTAN: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND / 67 Kurds in Turkey: from total denial to folkloristic existence / 69 Kurds in Iran: violence and folkloristic existence / 75 Kurds in Iraq: from genocide to quasi-independence / 77 Stateless Kurds in Syria / 79 CARTOGRAPHY OF THE KURDISH DIASPORA / 79 THE JOURNEY OF THE KURDISH REFUGEES / 83 KURDS FROM DORMANT DIASPORA TO ACTIVE DIASPORA: A GLOBAL VIEW OF THE PRACTICE OF LONG-DISTANCE NATIONALISM / 85 KURDISH DIASPORA ON AIR AND ONLINE, AND ITS LIMITATIONS / 91 IMPLICATIONS OF ASSABIYYA FOR THE KURDS / 95 THE EMERGENCE OF THE DE FACTO STATE OF IRAQI KURDISTAN / 99 ECONOMIC PROSPECTS IN IRAQI KURDISTAN / 100 LIMITATIONS OF POLITICS IN IRAQI KURDISTAN / 102 SUMMARY / 105
4. THE KURDISH DIASPORA IN FRANCE / 107 PART I / 109 THE FRENCH REPUBLICAN MODEL OF INTEGRATION / 109 INSTITUTIONS FOR THE RECEPTION AND INTEGRATION OF IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES / 111 HISTORIOGRAPHY OF IMMIGRATION IN FRANCE / 114 THE ERA OF “THREE DECADES OF GLORY” (TRENTE GLORIEUSES) / 116 FRANCE AS A TERRE D’ASILE / 119 THE OUTLINE OF ZÉRO IMMIGRATION / 121 THE ERA OF THE BANLIEUES / 124 THE DECAY OF THE BANLIEUES, SOCIAL EXCLUSION AND ETHNIC DISCRIMINATION / 126 THE BANLIEUE UPRISING OF NOVEMBER 2005 / 129 ISLAMIZATION OF THE RIOT DISCOURSE / 132 THE CRISIS OF FRENCH MONOCULTURALISM AND THE PLACE OF THE “OTHER” IN FRENCH SOCIETY / 135
PART II / 142 FORMATION OF THE KURDISH DIASPORA IN FRANCE / 142 THE EPISODE OF THE EAST SEA AND THE KURDISH REFUGEES AS “BOAT PEOPLE” / 144 PAINFUL MEMORIES OF SANGATTE / 147 INSTITUTIONAL ACTIVITIES AND THE PRACTICES OF TRANSBORDER CITIZENSHIP AMONG DIASPORAN KURDS IN FRANCE / 149 SARHADI KURDS IN THE REGION OF MARSEILLE / 154 THE MEMORY OF HOMELAND AMONG THE SARHADI KURDS / 155 SARHADI KURDS AS ETERNAL ASYLUM SEEKERS / 158 ASSABIYYA AND SOLIDARITY NETWORKS AMONG THE SARHADI KURDS / 161 SARHADI KURDS IN THE FRENCH LABOR AND HOUSING MARKETS: BETWEEN EXCLUSION AND INVISIBILITY / 165 LA MAISON DU PEUPLE KURDE IN MARSEILLE AS A NORMALIZING INSTITUTION / 171 SUMMARY / 173
5. KURDS IN SWEDEN AS TRANSBORDER CITIZENS: A GENERAL VIEW / 176 PART I / 179 SWEDISH IMMIGRATION, REFUGEE AND IMMIGRANT POLICY / 179 IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE FLOWS INTO SWEDEN: A HISTORIC OVERVIEW / 180 CONTROL AND REGULATION OF THE INFLUX / 181 SWEDISH IMMIGRANT POLICY IN THE 1960S: ASSIMILATION AS THE GUIDING CONCEPT / 182 FROM ASSIMILATION TO MULTICULTURALISM / 184 OUTLINES OF THE IMMIGRANT AND MINORITIES POLICY OF 1975: INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS / 185 EMERGENCE OF RACIST AND DISCRIMINATORY TRENDS: FROM IMMIGRATION TO INTEGRATION / 187 INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS, PARTICIPATION, CITIZENSHIP AND DIVERSITY: INTEGRATIONIST RHETORIC OR LEGITIMATE PRACTICES? / 190 ETHNIC AND RACIAL BOUNDARIES IN THE SWEDISH “PEOPLE’S HOME” (FOLKHEM) / 195 THE PLACE OF THE “OTHER” IN SWEDISH SOCIETY: STRUCTURAL DISCRIMINATION AND THE EMERGENCE OF SWEDEN DEMOCRATS / 198
PART II / 202 DIASPORAN KURDS IN SWEDEN: ARRIVAL AND SETTLEMENT / 202 KURDS IN THE SUBURBS: THE EXPERIENCE OF HOUSING SEGREGATION / 205 KURDISH ASSABIYYA IN SWEDEN / 211 ETHNIC DIVISIONS IN THE SWEDISH LABOR MARKET: KURDISH TAXI DRIVERS IN THE CITY / 216 THE STIGMATIZED IMAGE OF KURDS IN THE SWEDISH MEDIA: “HONOR KILLING” AS A BOUNDARYMAKING PHENOMENON / 223 BEING BOTH HERE AND THERE: SIMULTANEOUS POLITICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL PRACTICES / 228 KURDISH ASSOCIATIONS IN SWEDEN: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES / 230 NEW MODES OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND THE PATTERNS OF TRANSBORDER CITIZENSHIP / 234 SUMMARY / 237
CONCLUSION / 239 COMPARING THE FORMATION OF THE KURDISH DIASPORA IN FRANCE AND SWEDEN / 239 CONTEXTUALIZING THE KURDISH DIASPORA IN FRANCE AND SWEDEN: DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES / 241 CONCEIVING THE DISCOURSE OF VICTIM DIASPORA AROUND THE EXPERIENCE OF FORCED MIGRATION IN KURDISTAN / 243 KURDS AS THE “OTHERS”: TWO DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES IN TWO DIFFERENT CONTEXTS / 244 PERSISTENCE OF VICTIM DIASPORA AMONG THE SARHADI KURDS IN FRANCE / 250 ASSABIYYA NETWORKS AMONG DIASPORAN KURDS, SOCIAL MOBILITY IN SWEDEN AND THE STRATEGY OF SURVIVAL IN FRANCE / 251 THE PRACTICE OF TRANSBORDER CITIZENSHIP AND LONG-DISTANCE NATIONALISM AMONG DIASPORAN KURDS IN FRANCE AND SWEDEN: SWEDEN AS A CENTER OF GRAVITY / 252 FINAL WORDS / 255
BIBLIOGRAPHY / 258
Introduction
My initial knowledge of the Kurds in France dates back to the years 1997–98, when I traveled from Sweden to Provence, in France, in order to study political science at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Aix-en-Provence. During my sojourn there I realized that the majority of the Kurds in this part of France originated from a particular Kurdish rural area in Turkey, called Sarhad. They lived and developed their diasporic organizations in a number of cities and localities of the French Bouchesdu-Rhône, including Marseille, Marignane, Vitrolles, Aubagne and Aixen-Provence. Sarhadi Kurds, who mostly were asylum seekers, worked primarily in the building and restaurant trades, more often than not in harsh conditions. Moreover, I became gradually conscious that, like many other diasporan Kurds, Sarhadi Kurds – no matter where they are – regularly evoke the negative experiences of oppression and suffering in their societies of origin, which not only reinforced their sense of being victims but also considerably impeded the emergence of positive diaspora discourses.
At that time, I was wondering whether the victim diaspora discourse (Cohen 1995, 1996) that was much in evidence among the Kurds was an invention of diasporan Kurds themselves or, to the contrary, was strongly rooted in genuine repression of the Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria in the course of 20th century, and enhanced by negative memories of migration and by problems of social exclusion and discrimination that the Kurds experienced in their new societies. As my general knowledge of the Sarhadi Kurds increased during my stay in the region of Marseille, I wondered whether a common sense of victimhood constituted the major motive for diasporan Kurds in Sweden and France to maintain a diasporic identity, or whether other experiences and practices not only counteracted the Kurds’ victim diaspora discourse but also affected their transnational practices and the process of diaspora formation. If the latter, the question would be how these other trajectories and occurrences gave rise to various action modes that diasporan Kurds in France and Sweden adopted.
However, it was my earlier reflections on the lives of the Kurds in the Marseille region that aroused my interest in initiating a comparative study that initially would depict not only how diasporan Kurds in the Marseille and Stockholm regions conceived of their negative experiences but also how these negative experiences – mostly manifested in the sense of victimhood – gave way to other, positively conceived, experiences, exhibited more often than not in the Kurds’ institutional transnational practices and political activities. Nonetheless, several years later, when I became further engrossed in my fieldwork, I noticed that there were considerable differences between Kurds in France and those in Sweden, differences that would be barely comprehensible unless we actualized the social composition of each diasporan population and the national context in which each diasporic population was embedded. For instance, Sarhadi Kurds from a “rural” social background settling in a republican, assimilationist, universalist, secular and egalitarian French society (Schnapper 1998; Khosrokhavar 2001) could conceive of their diasporic identity very differently from the much more culturally, socially and politically diversified Kurdish diasporan population (van Bruinessen 1999) in Sweden, which is usually described as a multicultural society (see Ålund & Schierup 1991). Correspondingly, it would be plausible to expect that the conditions for transforming a negative perception of Kurdish diasporic identity into a positive one would be different among diasporan Kurds in France and Sweden.
FROM VICTIM DIASPORA TO TRANSBORDER CITIZENSHIP? Diaspora formation and transnational relations among Kurds in France and Sweden
Khalid Khayati
Linköping Studies in Arts and Science No. 435 Linköping University, Department of Social and Welfare Studies
Linköping 2008
Linköping Studies in Arts and Science • No 435 At the Faculty of Arts and Science at Linköping University, research and doctoral studies are carried out within broad problem areas. Research is organized in interdisciplinary research environments and doctoral studies mainly in graduate schools. Jointly, they publish the series Linköping Studies in Arts and Science.
Distribution: Department of Social and Welfare Studies Linköping University 581 83 Linköping
Khalid Khayati FROM VICTIM DIASPORA TO TRANSBORDER CITIZENSHIP? Diaspora formation and transnational relations among Kurds in France and Sweden
ISBN: 978-91-7393-884-6 ISSN 0282-9800
Series: Linköping studies in arts and science, No. 435
