Overview

This ethnographic work sheds light on the stories of those exiled as a result of Turkey’s purge against followers of the Hizmet (Gulen) Movement - a purge which began after the failed coup against Erdogan in 2016. In this book, Sophia Pandya gives voice to the experiences of these political refugees while analyzing the forces behind their displacement and highlighting the powerful process of experience narration and the creation of meaning after trauma. The study is informed by the author’s longstanding contact with figures in the Hizmet/Gulen Movement over the past 26 years. The book features 71 interviews with exiles, collected during fieldwork in Greece between 2018 and 2021. These narratives serve as a historical record of the individual human rights violations in Turkey since the failed coup but also provide a framework for understanding the human cost of this authoritarian crackdown. By integrating fieldwork, personal narratives, and academic theoretical grounding, this book offers a multifaceted view of the refugee experience.

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9780755654963

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Reviews

This powerful book gives voice to the often-overlooked Gulen refugees in Greece, blending personal narratives with thoughtful analysis to reveal the human cost of political upheaval. A deeply moving and essential contribution to understanding forced migration and resilience -- Nikos Christofis, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

This powerful book gives voice to the often-overlooked Gulen refugees in Greece, blending personal narratives with thoughtful analysis to reveal the human cost of political upheaval. A deeply moving and essential contribution to understanding forced migration and resilience -- Nikos Christofis, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece The plight of refugees throughout the world is heart-breaking, and the tragic accounts of the middle-class professionals and other followers of the Hizmet movement in Turkey are no less so. This book tells their stories with empathy and accuracy, and gives hope that the movement in diaspora will endure. It is an account of hardship and oppression, but also of survival and hope in difficult times. -- Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State An insightful ethnographic account of ‘fleeing Hizmet-linked Turkish citizen’ to Greece after Erdogan’s purge; succinctly capturing their forced displacement, refugee-making, collective trauma, and everyday struggles for recognition. Its novelty lies in letting its ‘refugee subjects’ to narrate and control their own stories and its meaning as ‘journey of sacred faith’-running throughout the different thematic chapters and giving hope to move forward. It further reflects on emerging internal debates and challenges of the Hizmet movement in the Post Gulen phase. . * Anwar Alam, Distinguished Fellow, Policy Perspectives Foundation, India *

Author Information

Sophia Pandya is Professor and Department Chair of Religious Studies at California State University at Long Beach, USA. She is author of Muslim Women and Islamic Resurgence: Religion, Education, and Identity Politics in Bahrain (2012). Having carried out extensive field research in Turkey, she co-edited The Gülen Hizmet Movement and its Transnational Activities: Case Studies on Charitable Activism (2012).

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