Talk:
“Social Closure and ‘Boundary Nesting’: Sunni-Turkish Majority vs. Kurdish and Alevi Minorities”
Abstract
Focusing on the dominant group’s (i.e. Sunni-Turks) attitudes towards the largest ethnic and religious minorities in Turkish social landscape (i.e. Kurds and Alevis respectively), this study investigates social closure and boundary-making processes in a Muslim-majority context. The following specific questions direct this research: How does the dominant group (Sunni-Turks) demarcate and maintain social boundaries in the Turkish context? Is there any difference in dominant group’s boundary making towards ethnic and religious minorities? For instance, is the religious or ethnic social closure of Sunni-Turks stronger? Why? What can we learn from this particular case for social boundary processes in general? In order to answer such questions, this study utilizes original public opinion survey data. Empirical analyses suggest that individual-level variables such as religiosity, nationalist tendencies and ideological orientations (i.e. left-right division) shape social closure and boundary-making processes. Furthermore, a given social group might demarcate multiple social boundaries between itself and a particular outgroup and those boundaries might exist in a nested structure, an inner narrower boundary being nested within thicker outer boundary. Thus, this study introduces boundary nesting as a novel and distinct type of boundary-making strategy.
by
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zeki Sarigil
Department of Political Science
sarigil@bilkent.edu.tr
12:30, Wednesday, November 30
A-130 (Seminar Room), FEASS Building
Short Bio:
Dr. Zeki Sarigil is an Assoc. Prof. of Political Science at Bilkent University. He received his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 2007. His research interests include ethnicity, ethnonationalism, Kurdish ethnopolitics; civil-military relations; institutional theory, informal institutions, path dependence; and Turkish politics. He has published articles in such journals as European Political Science Review, European Journal of International Relations, Armed Forces & Society, Nations and Nationalism, Ethnic and Racial Studies, South European Society and Politics, Critical Policy Studies, Mediterranean Politics and Turkish Studies. He received grants and awards from various institutions such as Fulbright and TUBITAK. He also received 2013 Distinguished Young Scientist Scholarship of Science Academy Association (BAGEP). Dr. Sarigil spent 2014-2015 academic year at Princeton University as Fulbright Visiting Scholar.