Common ground or battlefield? Deconstructing the politics of recognition in Turkey

Abstract

This article examines the impacts that the embrace of diversity talk has had on identity and ethnic politics in Turkey that has evolved toward a relative and selective recognition. Based on the analysis of the cases of the Laze and Kurdish movements, the article argues that the politics of recognition is built conjointly by an array of actors, at different levels, with different aims, and through their very practices and interactions. The article shows that although the embrace of diversity talk may mark a depolitisation of the ethno-national claims, it still gives room to forms of resistance. These dynamics have shaped a non-coherent, multi-layered, recognition that does not allow the building of a common ground in the country but rather of a battlefield around discursive and policies choices.