Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 11-3-2017 "I am a Teacher, a Woman's Activist, and a Mother": Political Consciousness and Embodied Resistance in Antakya's Arab Alawite Community Defne Sarsilmaz Florida International University, [email protected] DOI: 10.25148/etd.FIDC004024 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the Community-Based Research Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Human Geography Commons, Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons, and the Sociology of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Sarsilmaz, Defne, ""I am a Teacher, a Woman's Activist, and a Mother": Political Consciousness and Embodied Resistance in Antakya's Arab Alawite Community" (2017). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3542. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3542 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida I AM A TEACHER, A WOMEN’S ACTIVIST, AND A MOTHER: POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND EMBODIED RESISTANCE IN ANTAKYA’S ARAB ALAWITE COMMUNITY A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in GLOBAL AND SOCIOCULTURAL STUDIES by Defne Sarsilmaz 2017 To: Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs This dissertation, written by Defne Sarsilmaz, and entitled I am a Teacher, a Women’s Activist, and a Mother: Political Consciousness and Embodied Resistance in Antakya’s Arab Alawite Community, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved. _________________________________ Percy Hintzen _________________________________ Vrushali Patil _________________________________ Iqbal Akhtar _________________________________ Caroline Faria, Co-Major Professor _________________________________ Benjamin Smith, Co-Major Professor Date of Defense: November 3, 2017 The dissertation of Defne Sarsilmaz is approved. _______________________________ Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs _______________________________ Andrés G. Gil Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Dean of the University Graduate School Florida International University, 2017 ii © Copyright 2017 by Defne Sarsilmaz All rights reserved. iii DEDICATION …this Dissertation is dedicated to the Arab Alawite women of Antakya, and to the three generation of women in my family; my grandmother Ilse, my mother Monika, and my sister Nur… iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Researching and writing this dissertation has been an incredible journey and one that would not have been possible without the time, energy and care of the beautiful people listed below. Before I get into the names, I would like to thank FIU for the Dissertation Evidence Acquisition Fellowship in 2016 and the Dissertation Year Fellowship in 2017. With these two generous funding, I was able to enjoy the financial freedom to solely focus on researching and writing my dissertation and defend in a timely manner. I would like to start by acknowledging my committee who has supported me since day one. I want to thank Caroline Faria for being my role model as a feminist geographer, for her thoughtful and detailed feedback on every single document I have sent her way, and for her encouraging words that helped sustain me throughout my graduate career. I want to thank Ben Smith for introducing me to Geography, for encouraging me by telling me how “great” I was doing all along the way, and for always having my back. I want to thank Percy Hintzen for his invaluable mentorship, his beautifully complex mind that challenges me in unimaginable ways, and for making me feel like part of his family. I want to thank Vrushali Patil for her postcolonial feminist perspective and her wisdom on Third World feminist scholarship. And finally, I want to thank Iqbal Akhtar for pushing me to rethink certain gender dynamics within Islam from an indigenous perspective. I want to continue by thanking Sule Can and her family, who have taken me in and made me a part of their family during my fieldwork in Antakya. Whether v introducing me to locals or including me in events, Sule has gone above and beyond for my research. Most importantly, she became a close friend and colleague in the field and beyond. I want to thank Tuncay Yilmaz for his weekly teachings on the political history of the Turkish Republican era, for setting up a good portion of the interviews, and his friendship. I want to thank Ugur Akgul for his companionship and hospitality and Suleyman Sayar for his support and humor. I want to thank my favorite activist couple, Tulay Hatimogullari and Talat Oruc, for allowing me into their vibrant community. Tulay is the most bad-ass feminist activist and politician I know. The many conversations over Turkish coffee with Talat are invaluable and informed some critical aspects of my dissertation. Akan Atakan, Tansel Dogruel, Umran Buyukasik, and Barbaros Duman gave me an extensive list of contacts that I interviewed and for that I am forever grateful. Hakan Kamil, Berna Berber, Hulya Kavuk, Meryem Kilic, Hazal Durgun, Seda Bilal, Nedime and Seda Yuce invited me into their homes and reminded me of the generosity and hospitality of our region. I want to thank Mahmoud Al Jabri, Rabih Torbay, Sultan, Omer Horoz, Sera Marshall, Gamze Gulec, Ahmet Aksakal whose friendships have made Antakya even more of an enjoyable experience. As for the people who have fed me, went shopping with me, helped me look for housing, invited me for tea and coffee, stroke random conversations, showed me around, drove me around, gave me handmade and homemade goods, made me feel welcomed, there are just too many of you to list here, but be assured that you are not forgotten. I deeply value the interactions I had with the Antiochian community, vi especially with Arab Alawite women, who were so open in sharing their experiences with me and gracefully allowed me into their lives. I remain forever grateful and indebted. I have such a wonderfully diverse academic community, including the late Ambassador Joe Melrose, Derrick Scott, Billy Hall, Orcun Selcuk, Onur Erpul, Ozum Yesiltas, Julia Meszaros, Oceane Jasor, Nichelle Calhoun, Jacqueline Lyon, Alex Huezo, Kimiko Tanita, Janna Lafferty, Ulrich Oslender, Ali Hamdan, and Peter Wood. Thank you for your inspiration and collaboration in this journey. I consider myself lucky to know each one of you. I am grateful for my Miami community for making my stay in South Florida one of the best experiences in my life. I want to thank Jaime Diaz, Nilda ‘Yayi’ Sanchez and Melissa Maradiaga for always being there for me and being my 305 family. Joan Hintzen and Blossom Sullivan made me part of their family and introduced me to soca. Eric Joyner, Carmen Guiterrez, Xenia Dvoriantchikova, Brian Kerr, Carlos Gonzalez, Cory Hardaker, Geovanny Perez, Barry London, and Renata Eastlick spent time with me, sang with me, and made Miami a second home. Thank you all. I want to thank my best friends Sarah Frazer, Nayna Gupta, Carla Louis and Berrin Ak for cheering me on, for listening to me, for being there for me no matter what. I want to thank Harry Michel, Sue Hodges, Kivanc Baltutan, and Sertan Onur for supporting me and my family. I am thankful for my fur babies Minik and Naylay for keeping me on my toes. vii Finally, I want to thank my family, especially my grandmother Ilse, mother Monika and sister Nur, my aunt Tine, and my aunt Barbie for raising me and helping me become the person I am today. I am also thankful for my nephew Lucas, father Erol, brother Derya, and uncles Claus and Henning. I am so grateful for Jared Miller, who has provided me with his unyielding love, support, and intellect during the final stretch of this journey. I love you all. viii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION I AM A TEACHER, A WOMEN’S ACTIVIST, AND A MOTHER: POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND EMBODIED RESISTANCE IN ANTAKYA’S ARAB ALAWITE COMMUNITY by Defne Sarsilmaz Florida International University, 2017 Miami, Florida Professor Benjamin Smith, Co-Major Professor Professor Caroline Faria, Co-Major Professor Often pointed to as the region’s model secular state, Turkey provides an instructive case study in how nationalism, in the name of conjuring unity, often produces the opposite effect. Indeed, the production of nationalism can create fractures amongst, as well as politicize, certain segments of a population, such as minority groups and women. This dissertation examines the long-term and present- day impacts on nationalist unity of a largely understudied event, the annexation of the border-city of Antakya from Syria in 1939, and its implications on the Arab Alawite population. In doing so, it deconstructs the dominant Turkish narrative on the annexation, rewrites the narrative drawing on oral history from the ground, and it shows how nation-building is a masculinist project that relies on powerfully gendered language through studying the national archives. The heart of the project, however, remains the investigation of the political, social, and religious subjectivity ix of Arab Alawite women, with an emphasis on resistance to the structures and practices sustained by the state and patriarchy. The Arab Alawites, once numerically dominant in the Antakya region, are now an ethno-religious minority group within the Turkish/Sunni-dominated state structure. Although Antakya was the last territory to join Turkey in 1939, ever since that time many of its Alawites have resisted assimilation through covert, yet peaceful, methods.