Becoming Roma: Gypsy Identity, Civic Engagement, and Urban Renewal in Turkey Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Schoon, Danielle van Dobben Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 23/09/2021 15:00:21 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/579020 BECOMING ROMA: GYPSY IDENTITY, CIVIC ENGAGEMENT, AND URBAN RENEWAL IN TURKEY By Danielle V. Schoon __________________________ Copyright © Danielle V. Schoon 2015 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the SCHOOL OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND SCHOOL OF MIDDLE EASTERN AND NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2015 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Danielle V. Schoon, titled Becoming Roma: Gypsy Identity, Civic Engagement, and Urban Renewal in Turkey, and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________________________________________Date: 04/30/2015 Brian Silverstein ________________________________________________________________Date: 04/30/2015 Salih Can Açıksöz ________________________________________________________________Date: 04/30/2015 Anne Betteridge ________________________________________________________________Date: 04/30/2015 Zehra Aslı Iğsız ________________________________________________________________Date: 04/30/2015 Carol Silverman Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: 04/30/2015 Dissertation Director: Brian Silverstein ________________________________________________ Date: 04/30/2015 Dissertation Director: Salih Can Açıksöz 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Danielle V. Schoon 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have completed this dissertation without the support and guidance of my mentors, colleagues, family, and friends. I would like to express my very great appreciation, first and foremost, to my dissertation advisor and academic mentor, Dr. Brian Silverstein, for his expert advice and encouragement, and for reading and rereading many drafts of my work. I would also like to offer special thanks to my dissertation committee, Dr. Salih Can Açıksöz, Dr. Anne Betteridge, Dr. Zehra Aslı Iğsız, and Dr. Carol Silverman, for agreeing to serve on my committee and for supporting my project. I wish to acknowledge several other professors at the University of Arizona who did not serve on my final dissertation committee, but who contributed to this work along the way: Dr. Ana Maria Alonso, Dr. Aomar Boum, Dr. Michael E. Bonine, Dr. Linda Darling, Dr. Yaseen Noorani, and Dr. Leila Hudson. This research was made possible by the generous financial support of the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (funded by The Mellon Foundation that year), the Institute of Turkish Studies (ITS) Summer Research Grant and Dissertation Writing Grant, several Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships, and many intramural grants from the University of Arizona College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS), Graduate and Professional Student Council (GPSC), Associated Students of the University of Arizona (ASUA), School of Anthropology (SOA), School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies (MENAS), and Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES). I am grateful to the staff at the Fulbright IIE office in Turkey, who managed the distribution of funds and my orientation, as well as Dr. Sinan Ciddi of ITS, Dr. Scott Lucas of MENAS, Dr. Diane E. Austin of SOA, and Dr. Anne Betteridge of CMES for their support, and to the staff of these offices who made these grants possible. I am particularly thankful for the assistance of Georgia Ehlers and Shelley 5 Hawthorne Smith in the UA Graduate College Office of Fellowships and Community Engagement for their assistance with my Fulbright application. Thanks to Vladimir Spencer for the opportunity to participate in the U.S. Department of State and World Learning Foreign Policy Dialogue Among Emerging Leaders in Turkey and the U.S. in 2008. I am grateful to the American Anthropological Association, Association of American Geographers, Middle East Studies Association, and Gypsy Lore Society for opportunities to present my work at their annual meetings. Of course, this research would not have been possible without the generous contributions and willingness to participate of countless people and organizations in the field. Many of them go unnamed here for reasons of anonymity, but they have my deepest appreciation and gratitude. My special thanks are extended to Funda Oral for collaborating on this research project with me and for dedicating time, thoughtfulness, and creativity to pursuing answers to some of our most pressing questions. I would also like to thank the members of the Sulukule Platform and those people volunteering their time and resources to improving the situation of Turkey’s Roma, particularly Cihan Baysal, Viki Ciprut, Hacer Foggo, Figen Kelemer, Ana Oprisan, Nejla Osseiran, Derya Nuket Ozer, Emre Sahin, Çiğdem Şahin, and Özlem Soysal. For their scholarly contributions, I would like to thank Dr. Asu Aksoy, Dr. Jaynie Aydin, Dr. Ayfer Bartu Candan, Dr. Elsie Ivancich Dunin, Dr. Victor A. Friedman, Dr. Zeynep Gürsel, Dr. Tolga İslam, Dr. Hikmet Kocamaner, Dr. Biray Kolluoğlu, Dr. Zeynep Korkman, Dr. Tuna Kuyucu, Dr. Jennifer Mack, Dr. Adrian Marsh, Dr. Amy Mills, Dr. Judith Okely, Dr. Öykü Potuoğlu-Cook, Dr. Sonia Seeman, Dr. Zeynep Gonca Girgin Tohumcu, Dr. Özlem Ünsal, and Dr. Jeremy Walton. I especially appreciate Dr. Arzu Öztürkmen and Dr. Robert Reigle for helping me to establish professional affiliations at Boğaziçi University and the Turkish Music Conservatory School 6 (MIAM) at Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ), respectively. Nafiz Akşehirlioğlu, Elmas Arus, Cenk Aydin, Sevi Bayraktar, Moira Bernardoni, Ashwin Bijanki, Abdullah Cıstır, Megan Clark, Jonzi D, Hannah Draper, Caroline Finkel, Bajram Haliti and the World Romani Congress, Engin Işık, Constanze Letsch, Devi Mays, Kobra Murat, Abbas Nokhasteh, Simone Pekelsma, Şükrü Pündük and members of the Sulukule Romani Culture Development and Solidarity Association and the Sulukule Romani Orchestra, Logan Sparks, Mija Sanders, Ashley Stinnett, Maisa Taha, Delpha Thomas, Ahmed Tohumcu, Pelin Tünaydın, Reyhan Tuzsuz, Kevin Yıldırım, Sema Yıldız, Jessaiah Zure, Members of EdRom, the members of Tahribad-ı İsyan and the children of the Sulukule Atelier, the Adnan Menderes University Roma Studies Center, the Istanbul Studies Center at Kadir Has University, the Orient-Institut Istanbul, the Tarlabaşı Toplum Merkezi, and the directors of several Romani associations in Izmir, Edirne, and Istanbul, also made significant contributions to my studies and fieldwork, for which I am very grateful. I wish to acknowledge the support of my dear friends, teachers, and colleagues throughout my graduate work at the University of Arizona and in the field, especially Danielle Adams, Nadezhda Alexandrova, Paul Amiel, Elizabeth Angell, Julie Armin, Mete Bağcı, Eric Beisterfeld, Berker Berki, Burcu Borhan, Abigail Bowman, Diana Budur, Tamara and Tylor Brand, Jacob Campbell, Josh Carney, Amy Clark, Jessie Clark, Nick Danforth, Reed Duecy- Gibbs, Courtney Dorroll, Gail Godbey, Mary Goethals, Gökçe Günel, Murat Güney, Timur Hammond, Didem Havlioğlu, Nejlah Hummer, Damla Işık, Vedica Kant, Sarah El-Kazaz, Gregory Key, Hikmet Kocamaner, Nicholas Kontovas, Jim Kuras, Mehraneh Mirzazad Kuras, Avital Livny, Susan MacDougall, Priscilla Magrath, Lynn Maners, Alexander Markovic, Melanie Medeiros, Keri Miller, Elizabeth ‘Artemis’ Mourat, Britta Ohm, Ahmet Okal, Judith Okely, Dana Osborne, Özlem, Ebru and Cenk Özgür, Corky Poster, Lucero Radonic, Sarah 7 Raskin, Robin Reineke, Rodrigo Renteria, Carolina Safar, Öznur Sahin, Megan Sheehan, Gila Silverman, Loanne Snavely, Evren Sönmez, Jenn Squire, Robin Steiner, Angela Storey, Pete Taber, Natalia Martinez Tagüeña, Teoman Tureli, Seçil Uluışık, Sue and Jerry Whittaker, Urszula Wozniak, Joanna Wulfsberg, Mark Wyers, Murat Yıldız, Aslı Zengin, and many others. Last but certainly not least, I am deeply grateful for the love and support of my family, especially my parents and parents-in-law. Two dissertators and a new baby would not have made it to the finish line without