HOLYBIRTH · Pro-Kurdish Mevlid Commemorations in Turkey: Contested Understandings of a Popular Islamic Practice among Rival Ethno-Political Actors

This project is an inquiry into how actors strategically utilize religious repertoires and practices to articulate their political subjectivities. It mainly focuses on alternative mevlid celebrations organized by the rival factions of the Kurdish movement in Turkey, the Sunni Islamist Hizbullah and the secular ethnonationalist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), to commemorate the birth of Prophet Muhammad. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Diyarbakir, the project will investigate how a local Islamic practice has become a contested political arena in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish region, where rival nationalist interests and imaginaries compete for political dominance and legitimacy. Particular attention will be given to the conditions embedded in local power structures and everyday practices, which shape actors’ sense of identity and belonging. Drawing upon Bell’s theoretical exposition on ""ritualization"" and Connerton’s commemorative ritual theory, this project will offer a new perspective to investigate the intersection between religion and politics by analyzing a politicized ritual environment, in which various public expressions of Kurdish and Muslim identities are produced and disseminated. The methodological novelty of this project lies in its attempt to combine ethnographic inquiry with political science to shift the analytical focus from organizational and structural level explorations to daily human practice and interaction in social contexts.""