Doctoral Dissertation Research: Unsettling Geopolitics: The Mobilization of Politicized Kurdish Identity in Two Refugee Communities

博士论文研究：令人不安的地缘政治：两个难民社区中政治化的库尔德身份的动员

• 批准号: 9906948
• 负责人: Susan Roberts
• 金额: $ 0.74万
• 依托单位: University of Kentucky Research Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-08-01 至 2002-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9906948&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Unsettling; Geopolitics

Refugee communities consist of groups of individuals who form communities through their common backgrounds and shared experiences. Previous research on refugee communities has tended to focus on international political dimensions, with special emphasis given to the states from which refugees have emanated and sometimes to the locales where they have sought refuge. This state-centric emphasis has obscured important problems and issues associated with the social processes through which refugees reform their communities in new locales. This doctoral dissertation research project will examine how self-identified Kurdish refugees overcome social, cultural, and historical differences and participate in a larger Kurdish-identity movement. The geopolitical implications of the Kurdish-identity movement concern current conflicts within and among Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria as well as their relations with western states. This project focuses on the processes through which refugees have mobilized a politicized Kurdish identity. Developing concepts from refugee studies, anthropology, and geography, a life-course methodology will be used to explain how refugees relate their experiences within communities. Qualitative and quantitative methods will provide information about how both individual refugees and the refugee community form and nourish a politicized identity despite diasporic forces. A comparative case study of two Kurdish refugee communities in Nashville, Tennessee, and London, England, will employ a research protocol of in-depth interviews and surveys. Analyses of the data collected using these methods will help explain how communities overcome differences among members to mobilize a politicized identity and how they relate and map a diasporic Kurdish identity onto international politics. This research will contribute new empirical information to broader research on Kurdish issues. Through its examination of the life-course model and refugees as political actors, this research will also contribute to theoretical and conceptual work in refugee studies, as well as political geography and critical geopolitics. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.

难民社区由一群人组成，他们通过共同的背景和共同的经历形成社区。 以往关于难民社区的研究往往侧重于国际政治层面，特别强调难民的原籍国，有时也强调难民寻求庇护的地方。 这种以国家为中心的强调掩盖了与社会进程有关的重要问题和议题，难民通过这些社会进程在新的地方改革他们的社区。 这个博士论文研究项目将研究自我认同的库尔德难民如何克服社会，文化和历史差异，并参与更大的库尔德身份运动。 库尔德身份运动的地缘政治影响涉及土耳其、伊朗、伊拉克和叙利亚内部和之间的当前冲突以及它们与西方国家的关系。 该项目的重点是难民动员政治化的库尔德人身份的过程。 从难民研究、人类学和地理学中发展概念，将使用一种生命过程方法来解释难民如何将其经历与社区联系起来。 定性和定量的方法将提供资料，说明个别难民和难民社区如何在散居势力的影响下形成和滋养政治化的身份。 两个库尔德难民社区在纳什维尔，田纳西州和伦敦，英国的比较案例研究，将采用深入访谈和调查的研究协议。 对使用这些方法收集的数据进行分析将有助于解释社区如何克服成员之间的差异，以动员政治化的身份，以及他们如何将散居的库尔德人身份与国际政治联系起来。 这项研究将为更广泛的库尔德问题研究提供新的经验信息。 通过对生命历程模型和难民作为政治行为者的研究，这项研究也将有助于难民研究的理论和概念工作，以及政治地理学和关键的地缘政治学。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立的研究生涯。