This chapter is part of my efforts to develop a more comprehensive analytical approach to power, state power and state-society relations.
Dr Zeynep Kaşlı
I am rather proud of this chapter published in the Routledge Handbook of Turkey’s Diasporas which builds on the recent attempts in diaspora studies to unpack the state through an analysis of the Turkish case.
Unpaking the State from the Inside Out: Emerging Spaces and Actors of Diaspora Governance in the Border Province of Edirne, suggests that to overcome the monolithic view of the state, we need to consider not only the interactions and engagements between diasporas and their origin/kin states taking place abroad but also those diasporic engagements taking place at home. This is crucial for gaining a full sense of the transnational processes that lie at the centre of diasporic engagements. This chapter therefore invites readers to take a closer look at diasporic engagements from within the territorial borders of the origin state, and underlines the importance of practices on the ground in seeking to grasp the power and reach of the diasporic state.
Why is this research relevant?
This publication is part of my ongoing line of research on diaspora politics and governance. This line of research is part of my larger efforts to develop a more comprehensive analytical approach to power, state power and state-society relations that is historically informed and takes into account how both different forms and experiences of (im)mobilities and states’ responses to these mobilities are shaped by geo-historical processes.
This connects to the focus on governance issues by the Governance, Law and Social Justice research group. But more specifically, it suits to the Society and Space research team/cluster thame that I would like to further develop with some other colleagues at ISS.
Overall the chapter fits ISS’ goals for critical knowledge production and epistemic justice, as it rejects state-led categorizations and terms of debate on migration-related issues, and invites us to think critically of the effects of the current paradigm and tries to go beyond that.