Images of working lives: Experiences of Kurdish migrants in London

Photo Exhibition

Organized by Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University

Date: Friday 16th- 23rd July 2010 ( Exhibition opening reception 5pm on Friday 16th July 2010)

Venue: RenkArt Centre, 86 Stoke Newington High Street, Stoke Newington N16 7PA

Images of working lives is an exhibition held as part of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded research project conducted by Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University to highlight the working conditions of an ‘invisible’ community, Kurdish Diaspora, in London.

The study focused on minority ethnic workers who experienced difficulties at work and how they developed strategies to solve work related problems including racism, discrimination, bullying, exclusion and isolation. We chose three different minority ethnic communities- locally based ethnic groups, Kurds in Hackney, South Asian in Ealing and Black Caribbeans in Lambeth- in London to enable us to compare and contrast a whole range of different issues. We interviewed total of 185 workers – 100 individually and 88 in 16 focus groups and 64 interviews with ‘key respondents’ who were officials from trade unions, advice agencies and community groups.

Our research team will give brief information on our research findings on the working condition of the Kurdish workers and their strategies to solve work related problems and difficulties.

The exhibition illustrates different experiences of the Kurdish Diaspora in the context of ethnicity, identity, belonging, community and working lives. The audience is invited to take a closer look at the migrants’ life experiences reflected to the lens of photo journalist Jim Hodson, Ümit Avcu and Kurdish photographers’ group RenkArt including Döndü Demir, Erdogan Guccuk, Bektaþ Arif, Alper Taþçý as well as locally based Kurdish photographer Ümit Avcu.

Research team: Dr Jane Holgate (Principal investigator), Janroj Keles, Dr Leena Kumarappan and Professor Anna Pollert.

For further information please contact Dr Jane Holgate or Janroj Keles

j.holgate@londonmet.ac.uk or j.keles@londonmet.ac.uk

This research project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and is being undertakeby the Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University.
For further information about our research please visit our website
http://www.workinglives.org/research-themes/wlri-project-websites/$-emraw/emraw_home.cfm

Defining the Nation: Kurdish Historiography in Turkey in the 1990s

Speaker: Dr Konrad Hirschler of School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Date and Time: 4^th May 2010, @ 5:00pm

Venue: B104, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London  Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Organised by Kurdish Studies and Students Organisation (KSSO) and Kurdish Society at SOAS (KSSOAS)

Seminar abstract

Dr Hirschler will talk on the Kurdish historiography in Turkey in the 1990s and especially the ways in which it constructs, defines and reworks Kurdish national identity.

Biography

Dr  Konrad Hirschler is Senior Lecturer in the History of the Near and Middle East of SOAS, London University. His research interests: Historiography; history of reading; cultural and social history of the pre-modern Middle East; crusades in the Middle East. He is the author of the book “Medieval Arabic Historiography: Authors as Actors” and has published academic articles widely on pre-modern Arabic Historiography and two comprehensive articles on Kurdish Historiography in Turkey in the 1990s.

For more Information click on www.ksso.org.uk or mc@ksso.org.uk

Speaker: Ms. Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman of Kurdistan Regional Government’s High Representative to the UK

Chair: Dr. Konrad Hirschler, Senior Lecturer in the History of the Near and Middle East, SOAS

Date/time: 20^th March 2010 at 5:00pm

Venue: G2, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS) Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Organised by Kurdish Studies and Students Organisation (KSSO) and Kurdish Society at SOAS (KSSOAS)

Seminar Abstract

In the 1980s, the people of Kurdistan in Iraq were under chemical bombardment, thousands of villages were being destroyed and the people were being massacred in their thousands by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Today the people of the Kurdistan Region live in a peaceful and stable environment, the number of universities has increased from one in 1991 to more than 10 today with more on the way, thousands of villages have been rebuilt and infrastructure projects undertaken. As well as having their own regional government, the Kurds hold key positions in the federal government in Baghdad. These achievements cannot be underestimated in the context of Iraq and the Middle East, however, the path has not been smooth and there are uncertainties that lie ahead of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s High Representative to the UK, will discuss the challenges ahead.

Organised by Ipek Demir (Leicester University)

For further details, see here.

This symposium will provide a forum for reflecting and discussing ‘diaspora’ by focusing on the case of Kurds from Turkey. Since the late-1980s there has been a significant migration of Kurds from Turkey to the various countries in Western Europe. Even though Kurds from Turkey make up a significant proportion of London’s ethnic minority population, they constitute an ‘invisible’ diasporic community, both in terms of the current ethnicity debates in the UK and in diaspora studies. The papers will consider theoretical and political dimensions as well as discuss current empirical work.

Speakers:
Dr Umut Erel, RCUK Academic Fellow, Open University
Janroj Keles, London Metropolitan University
Dr Ibrahim Sirkeci, European Business School, London
Latif Tas, Queen Mary, University of London
Dr Issa Tozun, London Metropolitan University
Dr Ipek Demir, University of Leicester

The symposium is free for all BSA members and those at the University of Leicester. For all others, there is a charge of £10 payable on the day. As places are limited, if you would like to attend, please register by e-mailing (before May 1^st 2010) Ipek Demir (id34 AT le.ac.uk) and stating your institutional affiliation.

Understanding Diaspora: The Case of Kurds in London

BSA Theory Study Group Symposium, organised in association with

the Department of Sociology, University of Leicester

14 May 2010, University of Leicester

Programme:

10.30 -11.00: Registration (tea and coffee)

11.00 -13.00: ‘Diasporic Experiences’

• Dr Umut Erel, RCUK Academic Fellow, Open University
  ‘Kurdish Migrant Mothers in London’
• Janroj Keles, London Metropolitan University
  ‘Community, Network and Ethnic Politics of Migrants in London: The Case of Kurds’
• Dr Issa Tozun, London Metropolitan University
  ‘Educating Children of Kurdish Origin in Britain’

13.00 – 2.15: Lunch

2.15 – 4.15: ‘Diaspora, Identity and Belonging’

• Latif Tas, Queen Mary, University of London
  ‘Kurds in the UK: Legal Pluralism and Dispute Resolution in the Diaspora’
• Dr Ibrahim Sirkeci, European Business School, London
  ‘Diasporas from Turkey: Transnational space between the Turkish and Kurdish’
• Dr Ipek Demir, University of Leicester
  ‘Battling with Homeland’

4.15 – 5.00: Wrap up Session (tea and coffee)

Seminar: Ge

Speaker: Dr Choman Hardi

Chair:  Dr Umut Erel

Date and time : 21rst January 2010,@7:00 pm

Venue: B111, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

(SOAS) Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Organised by Kurdish Society at SOAS (KSSOAS) and Kurdish Studies and Students Organisation (KSSO)

Seminar Abstract

Al-Anfal (The Spoils) was a series of military attacks launched by the Iraqi state against the Kurdish rural inhabitants in 1988. The offensive took place in 8 stages and it stretched over seven months (Feb- Sep 1988). During the campaign 281 locations were attacked with poison gas, more than 2600 villages were razed to the ground, and 100,000 civilians were disappeared.

This research was conceptualised in the early 2000s when I watched numerous documentaries about Anfal on the Kurdish satellite channels. I found that despite the fact many women were interviewed during these documentaries a large part of their experiences during and after Anfal remained unspoken about. Here I draw on interviews conducted during my research (2005-2008) and some of my work for the Kurdish Museum project (2008- 2009), collecting testimonies as part of a team involving cameraman, director and photographer. My aim was to get a general overview of the women’s experiences who suffered during the different stages of Anfal and in the aftermath.

The sample included 59 women and 22 men for my research and I have also drawn on 16 interviews (13 women and 3 men) conducted for the Museum Project. This means a total of 70 women and 24 men have informed this research. Various others have contributed to this research through conversations and meetings that took place during fieldwork.

In my research I found that there were differences in how women and men remembered the genocide campaign and also they differed in what they remembered. Here I will discuss three factors that influenced Kurdish women’s remembrances of the Anfal campaign, namely the gender expectations of how men and women should feel and behave in Kurdish society; the dominant Anfal narrative; and the social stigma around certain experiences. I will also speak about the consequences of the way women are represented in the official Anfal narrative for the women themselves and the community at large.

Speaker: Parwez Zabihi

Date and Time: 04 December 2009 at 7:00

Venue: B104 School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

(SOAS) Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Following first KSSO seminar on urban regeneration in South Kurdistan in November 2008 at SOAS, Parwez has been continuing his research to document visually the important social and architectural transformation in Arbil, Slemani, Kerkuk,Koya, Dehuk and Sharazoor/Halabja.

He will present his recently conducted visual documentation on the social and architectural transformation in cities of South Kurdistan and talk about the current urbanization policy of the Kurdish local and national government

Biography

Parwez Zabihi is from Kurdistan (East) his family originally from Bookan province of Kurdistan. Parwez have lived and worked in the UK since 1986, studied fine arts at Central St. Martin School of Arts and later finished his postgraduate studies at Central School of Speech and Drama, with particular emphases on European philosophy.

He is currently has a second home and studio in Cologne and teaches in Urban Regeneration as visiting lecturer. He visited Kurdistan in October 2009 to deliver series of lectures on the same topic at the University of Saladin and university of Kurdistan both in Kurdish and in English languages for the Kurdish and non-Kurdish
Kurdish audience in Kurdistan.

His passion is beauty of landscape in particular Kurdistan, he has been researching the development of the Kurdistan region since 1992, his research focuses on processes of National and regional changes both in society and in landscapes, paying particular attention both geographically and historically to the area that have witnessed major changes both politically and socially since the collapse of Iraqi regime.

He is currently writing a Guide for Business Travelers to Kurdistan. The Guide will be published in English by Stacey International publishing in 2010 in the UK. He is also a contributor to a new book on Kurdistan ‘on becoming of age’ due to be printed in spring 2010. He is writing 2 sections of the book, history of music in south Kurdistan and its current dynamics and Kurdish design in textiles and carpets both historically and current.

Chair: Dr. Umut Erel of Open University

Date: 22nd Oct 09 @ 7:00

Venue: G3,  School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS) Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Organised by Kurdish Studies and Students Organisation (KSSO)

Abstract

This paper engages with debates surrounding the use of biographical narrative interviews in the social sciences. It draws on narrative interviews with different groups of migrants in Sweden, and focuses particularly on how the migrants narrate experiences of racism, discrimination and disadvantage. By considering the migrants’ narratives alongside an analysis of political and popular debates concerning migrant integration, we see that aside from providing access to a multitude of subjective experiences that help challenge dominant narratives, those dominant narratives are at the same time reflected in, and to some extent frame, migrant narratives. In the paper, I will explore both the content and framing of migrants’ stories about racism and disadvantage, and, drawing on Foucault, I will argue that attending to how power is exercised through discourse when analyzing migrant narratives, can take us a step further in using narrative interviews for understanding social inequalities, in terms of both the experience and reproduction of these.

Dr Maja Cederberg is Lecturer in the Department of International Relations, Politics and Sociology, Oxford Brookes University. Her fields of research are in the areas of international migration, gender, ethnicity, ‘race’ and racism, social inequalities and citizenship. Other research interests include work and employment, labour market and welfare policies, social and cultural theory, and qualitative research methods, particularly the use of narrative interviews in social science research.  http://ssl.brookes.ac.uk/staff/prof.asp?ID=315

Dr Umut Erel is RCUK Academic Fellow – Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance and Sociology Department, Open University. http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/staff/people-profile.php?name=Umut_Erel

Further information

www.ksso.org.uk

mc@ksso.org.uk

Speakers

Mr. Robert Lowe, Research Fellow, Manager of Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House

Mr. Amed Semo, Independent Researcher and Medical Doctor

Chair:Mr. Janroj Keles, Research Fellow, London Metropolitan University

Date: October 8th, 2009 at 7:00pm

Venue: Room V111, Vernon Square, SOAS University

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Vernon Square
Penton Rise
London
WC1X 9EW

Abstracts of the seminar

Robert Lowe of Chatham House

The Serhildan: narrative and identity among Kurds in Syria

The Kurdish political and cultural movement in Syria has lacked prominent historical reference points. Compared to Kurds in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, those in Syria have a shorter ‘national story’. The violent events of 2004, described by some Kurds as the ’serhildan’ (uprising), have given sharper definition to the movement and provided a new potent symbol of victimhood. The serhildan has provided a new narrative which has altered the language and nature of the movement and has given Kurds in Syria a major reference point which is specifically theirs.

Mr. Amed Semo, Independent Researcher and Campaigner for stateless Kurds in Syria

Stateless Kurds in Syria” buried alive” a case of a cultural and identity Genocide.

The suppressive Syrian regime, in flagrant breach of human rights and international law, developed the racist, discriminatory Census Article 93, issued on 23/08/1962 and implemented on 05/10/1962, limited to Al Hasakah and Kurdish regions, which initially resulted in more than 150,000 and now increased to more than half a million, Kurds, who had been living in their own homeland, being stripped of their Syrian nationality certificate, thereby depriving them of the basic human right of surviving and prospering in their own country. Those whose nationality was withdrawn, and henceforth considered as foreigners in their own land, have no right to work in formal government departments, nor to own property, nor can they have access to education and health facilities. They cannot register their marriages and neither are they allowed to register their children in the state civil records. They cannot travel abroad as they cannot obtain a passport. They have no rights to practice some freelance professions such as medicine, law and teaching, which require a nationality certificate. In conclusion, they have no birthright to live in their own homeland. This racial and cultural genocide still continues today, after more than four decades….

Abstract of the seminar

The Serhildan: narrative and identity among Kurds in Syria

The Kurdish political and cultural movement in Syria has lacked

prominent historical reference points. Compared to Kurds in Turkey, Iraq

and Iran, those in Syria have a shorter 'national story'. The violent

events of 2004, described by some Kurds as the 'serhildan' (uprising),

have given sharper definition to the movement and provided a new potent

symbol of victimhood. The serhildan has provided a new narrative which

has altered the language and nature of the movement and has given Kurds

in Syria a major reference point which is specifically theirs.

Over the coming months the UK Kurdish Studies and Student Organisation will be announcing its programme of events for the 2009/2010 academic year.

In October KSSO will host three events starting off with a seminar on statelessness titled “Citzenship and Statelessness in Syria” given by Robert Lowe, manager and research fellow for the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, and Alan Shamoson. Mr Lowe is an expert on Kurdish issues with a special focus on Syria. The date of the event is October 8th at SOAS University, starting at 6pm in the Khalili lecture conference room.

On October 22nd Dr. Maja Cederberg of Oxford Brooks University will be holding a seminar on “Presences and absences in stories about racism and disadvantage.“ This seminar will take a broad look at issues of racism and disadvantage including the case of Kurdish communities.

KSSO will announce the times and exact room locations for these events closer to the event dates, but please do make a note in your diaries.

We welcome all new and old Kurdish and non-Kurdish students, as well as non-students, and hope to make 2009/2010 another successful year for KSSO.

For future events please see our new events calendar at the bottom of the page.

Kamal Rauf the editor in cheif of Hawlati newspaper will highlight the main issues in the recent elections which were held on July 25th, 2009.

Established in 2000, Hawlati is the leading independent newspaper in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, with a circulation of 150,000. In April 2009 Hawlati launched a London edition and became the first Kurdish newspaper to be published both in Kurdistan and the UK.

The seminar is in Kurdish (Sorani) language and there will be an open debate at the end of the seminar. English translation will be provided for those that request it.

Date and time:

Friday 31st July 2009 from 7.00 PM to 9.00 PM

Location:

Room G51
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
University of London
Thornhaugh Street
Russell Square
London WC1H 0XG

Click here for map

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The UK Kurdish Studies & Student Organisation is a non-political body that strives to promote greater awareness of the Kurds, their political and cultural situation in the Middle East, and as a significant minority community in the UK.