Another output of the Gerda Henkel Foundation-funded project on changes in the political identity of Kurdish immigrants in Western Europe was presented at the Migration and Social Change conference at Utrecht University on June 22-23. It was a paper entitled “The Experience of Suspension among Political Identities; Kurdish Nationality and Aspiration for Kurdistani Citizenship among Kurdish Immigrants in Western Europe,” which was presented in panel 3, Identities and Intergroup relations, and discussed the immigrants’ status from the perspective of the relationship between individual and political organization, state and society/community. Using a qualitative approach, the paper has tried to uncover that how these immigrants think about different collective political identities, particularly their nationality and citizenship, why and how their views have changed, and which collective social identity has had most impact on shaping their political view. Accordingly, unlike the political identity of stateful people whose nationality and citizenship coincide, the current political identity of Kurdish immigrants is suspended among collective political identities, especially between different nationalities and citizenships. The importance of ethno-national identity for them, where social and political identities overlap, has not only led to the use of the separation of nationality and citizenship to express their Kurdish nationality, but has also strengthened the aspiration to a citizenship based on Kurdish nationality or Kurdistani citizenship. This paper is to be published in the future with its details in an academic journal.
https://www.uu.nl/en/research/migration-and-societal-change/conference-2023