United in Religion, Divided by Ethnicity? Islam's Failure as A Supranational Identity in Turkey

• In Event: 366 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session II
  In Refereed Roundtable: B. Table 11. Religion

Abstract

This paper is an inquiry into understanding why supranational religions, like Christianity and Islam, fail to act as peace-building tools in ethno-nationalist conflicts between religiously homogenous groups and why, in these cases, ethnicity seems to prevail over religious identity. To answer this question, I specifically look at Sunni Islam as a failing supranational identity in the Kurdish conflict in Turkey - an armed struggle led by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) against the Turkish state since 1984. Focusing specifically on the period between 2002-2014 and building on 62 interviews I conducted with Turkish and Kurdish Sunni Muslim religious elites –mainly imams but also members of religious NGOs and religious orders (tariqas) – I find that Islam fails to play a conciliatory role and unite these elites because of their differing interpretations of Islamic teachings on ethnicity, and because of the structural changes the political and religious fields in Turkey have been undergoing since 2002. To analyze these findings I employ theories on symbolic boundaries and ethnic boundary making and propose that Sunni Muslim religious elites’ approach to ethnicity and religion can be summarized by a three-fold typology of identity categories: 1) religio-ethnic, 2) ethno-religious, and 3) religious/supranational. As such, I argue that, ethnic and religious identity formation, at least in this particular case, is a quite complex process dependent on power structures, institutional changes and the opportunities arising in these fields. Hence is the need for a more comprehensive theory when considering religious and ethnic identity formation in ethno-nationalist conflicts.

Author

• Gulay Turkmen-Dervisoglu, Yale University