"Ethnicization of Islam" and Headscarved Dutch-Turkish Students' Identity Politics in the Netherlands: The Case of Amsterdam

Koyuncu-Lorasdagi B.

ULUSLARARASI ILISKILER-INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, vol.10, no.38, pp.57-75, 2013 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 10 Issue: 38
  • Publication Date: 2013
  • Journal Name: ULUSLARARASI ILISKILER-INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
  • Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, TR DİZİN (ULAKBİM)
  • Page Numbers: pp.57-75
  • Hacettepe University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Since the mid-2000s, the complex relationship between migration and religion (Islam) at the axis of identity politics in Western Europe has received an increasing academic attention. This article, based on the first-hand data gathered through semi-structured in-depth interviews with,30 headscarf-wearing Dutch students of Turkish origins in Amsterdam, aims to explore the quest for the recognition of new Muslim woman identity with the headscarf in the Dutch context in the aftermath of 9/11 and the murder of the film director Theo van Gogh in 2004 by disassociating Islam and Turkish culture and themselves as "conscious and active believers" from traditional first-generation Turkish women. The contention is that in the process of ethnicization of Islam in the Netherlands, the headscarf is the main statement through which newly emerging identity politics of the headscarved Muslim Dutch students of Turkish origin in Amsterdam is expressed.