538.19
Re-Invention of the Kurdishness through the Transnational Kurdish Media
Dr Janroj Keles, Business School of Middlesex University
Abstract
The rapid development of transport and communications technologies have contributed to the exchange of information and resources along with multiple participation in socio-cultural and political activities across the borders of national states. Transnational ethnic media has played a key part in this by enabling a re-connection of diasporic/transnational populations with a mediated homeland. In this sense, this paper will explore the linkages between nationalism, media and Kurdish migrants and the role of the Kurdish transnational media in articulating and mobilizing different political and identity positions for Kurdish migrants. It will focus on the development of Kurdish media in Turkey/Kurdistan and in Europe and the way in which they have connected, constructed a deterritorized imagined Kurdish political community. This paper will be based on 30 in-depth interviews with Kurdish journalists and migrants of diverse age, gender, political affiliation, occupation and length of migration in London, Berlin and Stockholm.