Holy Birth

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

Aslı Elitsoy’s project explores how different actors strategically utilize religious repertoires and practices to articulate their political subjectivities. The focus will be on alternative valid celebrations organized by rival factions within the Kurdish movement in Turkey to commemorate the birth of Prophet Muhammad. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the project will investigate how a local Islamic practice has become a contested political space in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish region, where rival nationalist interests and imaginaries compete for political dominance and legitimacy.