The Role of Cultural Heritage in the Creation of a Sense of Belonging Among Young Norwegian Turks: Boundary Making and Crossing (original) (raw)

BEING IMMIGRANT AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF SENSE OF BELONGING AND ETHNIC IDENTITY: THE EXAMPLE OF AHISKA TURKS

Sosyoloji Konferansları - Istanbul Journal of Sociological Studies, 2017

Throughout history, people have migrated from their homes for many reasons. Today, migration and immigration debates concern how, in general, perceptions of identity and belonging are transformed into multicultural societies where, depending on social interaction processes, individuals can reproduce their identity and sense of belonging. However, such rebuilding processes are not the same for every subculture in mainstream society. Problems migrants experienced in other societies, special links shared with the homeland, and memories shared with other group members generally determine identity and sense of belonging. Additionally, with the development of mass media and transportation, subcultures have preserved their ethnic identities and maintained essential links with their homelands. In particular, this study researched how Ahiska Turks, who were subject to forced migration and who returned to their homeland after many years, retain their ethnic identity and sense of belonging to their homeland despite their lives in different societies.

The Turks in Sweden in the Triangle of Acculturation, Integration and Homeland

In this field study, social, cultural, political identity and sense of belonging to Turks in Sweden, to which degree they are integrated into the country they live in, their perception about their homeland, and whether there is a difference between the generations about this subject were assessed in line with the data obtained in the research. The data obtained in the field study carried out in Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö cities, the most densely inhabited cities by Turks, and the analysis of the data was made using SPSS 18 programme. When the data obtained are analysed, it is revealed that Turks in Sweden care for the identity formation representing their homeland and its continuation in socio-cultural terms, and they generally tend to be conservative in this sense. Nevertheless, it is also understood that the contact of Turks in Sweden with Turkish culture and Turkey is gradually decreasing (when it compared to the past). This also reveals the differences between the generations. When that 3rd generation young Turks born in Sweden came to Turkey, they generally do not feel like in their homeland, but in a foreign country or a country they visit as guests, and this also related to this kind of change. While negativities occur at the point of active participation of the Turks in Sweden in the political system in this country, that they are generally in a positive level at the point of corporate integration is another result arising out of the data obtained in the field study.

Towards a transdimensional home: home-making in the narrations of Norwegians of Turkish descent

Journal of Housing and the Built Environment

Building on current scholarship and empirical evidence from the research conducted by the author on Norwegian Turkish communities in the city of Drammen, Norway, this paper discusses the process of home-making by the descendants of Turkish immigrants in Norway, the so-called second- and third-generation. By doing so it develops a model of a transdimensional home that attempts to embrace the multiple and seemingly contradictory meanings and reflections of home involving eight dimensions identified in the narrations of the respondents: spatial, material, relational, home as routines and protection, home as origin, sensorial home, gendered relationships at home, and rejection from home. The model of a transdimensional home highlights people’s emotional and practical balancing acts between the ancestral country of origin and the place they live in. It aims at grasping the dynamics between these dimensions, approaching home as occurring at their intersection. It also underlines the proce...

Securing Norwegianness: Imagining threats to a cultural community

2012

This Master’s thesis is born out of a growing unease with the general discourse on im- migration and immigration policy in Norway. What at times appears as an ongoing discussion concerning the amount, and potential negative impact, of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees that should or should not be admitted into Norway, has become an overarching container for a plethora of important discussions on the underlying issues of globalization, the Norwegian welfare state, secularism and religion, cultural identity, ethnicity, citizenship—and, central to this thesis; what it entails to be Norwegian. Whereas a Norwegian identity may or may not exist as a unique conglomerate—that is, as particular to Norwegians—consisting of a range of cultural, ethnic and political idiosyncrasies, it is never the less present a posteriori, vocally defended when viewed as a target being threatened by external pressure. This external threat, it seems when looking into the Norwegian public debate, is primarily constituted by ‘foreign-culturals’, that is, migrants from beyond the Western cultural community—none more foreign than Muslims. Originating from a range of more or less vocal actors across the Norwegian political spectrum, cries for support in defending Norwegian values and culture is mediated through newspapers, television and radio on a daily basis, creating an environment where the baser instincts of homo Norvegicus are allowed to thrive and flourish. Norwegianness—in the vast majority of its subscribers—is neither problematized nor properly conceptualized until it meets this foreign ‘constitutive outside’, forcing into play a renewed interest in what it means to be Norwegian. The value-oriented tenets of Norwegianness, however, are at times indistinguishable from the core ideas of the more classic conceptions of European enlightenment. The Enlightenment, both as historical epoch as well as ongoing civilizing project (in its multiple understandings and facets), is fundamental as a backdrop in the construction of a binary opposition between the rational and agency-driven (while emphatically good-hearted) ‘Us’ as opposed to the cultural-psychologically driven, abject, immigrant ‘Other’.

Heritage, place and identity among Norwegian Tamils

This assessment will explore the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of hindus from Sri Lanka who live in diaspora in Norway. In the text I will attempt to explore the links between heritage, place and identity among Norwegian tamils: ​“How does heritage, place and identity among tamils from Sri Lanka connect, survive and evolve in a diaspora context?” ​ More specific I will try to connect some of the ritual practices who are performed during an annual temple festival performed in Norway with South Asian Cultural Heritage connected to the group who is hosting the event: the Tamil community. I will attempt to show how the festival and rituals performed are both giving the participants a connection to the Cultural Heritage connected to their country of origin as well as to their new country, Norway.

Transition Rituals Among Norwegian Russ Collective Identity, Intergenerational Relations, and Civic Society

This paper examines transition rituals and activities of Norwegian Russ (youth graduating from high school). Drawing on observations, archival and in-depth interview data collected over six years, we make two important findings. First, through their creative participation in traditional rituals Russ develop and share their own collective identity while also contributing to civic society more generally. Second, intergenerational relations play a central role in the Russ experience and through their activities with younger children and adults Russ reflect on their own temporal positions in the generational order. Our analysis contributes to better understanding of the changing nature of the symbolic value of Russ in Norwegian society, debate about the growing commercialization of youth traditions and activities in a global economy, and the complexity of the liminal aspect of rites of transition.

Meaning and Functions of Norwegian-Turkish Vernacular Space in Drammen, Norway

BORDER CROSSING, 2016

This paper discusses the functions and meaning of Norwegian-Turkish vernacular space in Norway. Employing the Foucauldian concept of heterotopia, it analyzes Turkish ethnic clubs in Drammen - a midsized city situated in the western part of Norway. In 2013, 25% of the city’s inhabitants were of an immigrant background with the majority (13.5%) being of Turkish origin (Høydahl, 2014). Most of them arrived in the city as “guest workers” in the late 1960s and 1970s, and were followed afterwards by other members of their families. Due to their prolonged residence, they have managed to make an imprint on the city’s landscape. This study shows that Norwegian-Turkish ethnic clubs are heterotopias of Norwegian society, in a Foucauldian understanding of the term. They embody practices, discourses and signs of identity originating from Turkey, being at the same time ordered by the rules of Norwegian society. I argue that those transnational spaces, labeled as “foreign,” and linked to Turkey, b...

Collective Identity, Intergenerational Relations, and Civic Society: Transition Rituals Among Norwegian Russ

This paper examines transition rituals and activities of Norwegian Russ (youth graduating from high school). Drawing on observations, archival and in-depth interview data collected over six years, we make two important findings. First, through their creative participation in traditional rituals Russ develop and share their own collective identity while also contributing to civic society more generally. Second, intergenerational relations play a central role in the Russ experience and through their activities with younger children and adults Russ reflect on their own temporal positions in the generational order. Our analysis contributes to better understanding of the changing nature of the symbolic value of Russ in Norwegian society, debate about the growing commercialization of youth traditions and activities in a global economy, and the complexity of the liminal aspect of rites of transition.