This study compares self-construals in Belgium and Turkey in two different relationship contexts: mother and teacher. Following Kağıtçıbaşı’s model, we measured self-construal along the dimensions of autonomy and relatedness. Belgian (n = 276) and Turkish (n = 153) students completed Self Scales for either the mother or the teacher context. Consistent with previous cross-cultural research, Belgian students were more autonomous and less related than Turkish students, when aggregating across relationship contexts. However, in each culture, reported self-construals differed by relationship context. Moreover, the differences were entirely driven by the teacher context; no cultural differences were found with regard to self-construals in the mother context. One implication is that cultural self-construals are better seen as combined instances of socially situated selves than as stable traits.

Ethnic and national identities, as ingroup and superordinate identities, are key predictors for reconciliation, yet less research considers religious identity a superordinate identity. Focusing on the reconciliation of the Kurdish conflict in Turkey, this study aims to test a mediation model in which the relations between ethnic (i.e., Kurdish) and religious identifications (i.e., Muslim) and reconciliation outcomes were mediated by positive intergroup emotions. Moreover, to understand the diffusion of the conflict in a transnational context, this model is tested both in Turkey and Belgium among Muslim Kurdish minorities (N = 141). Kurdish minorities' levels of support for reconciliation and the ways they construe reconciliation were analyzed as two outcomes. For the latter, descriptions of reconciliation were first content-coded into seven themes. A latent class analysis of these themes led to two main construals: those endorsing a rights-based versus dialogue-based understanding of reconciliation; which was then used as a binary outcome. Results supported a similar mediation model in Turkey and Belgium. Accordingly, stronger religious identification as Muslim was associated with positive intergroup emotions and in turn more support for reconciliation, whereas stronger ethnic identification as Kurdish had the opposite effect. However, having Muslim identity as a superordinate identity was double-edged for the Kurdish minorities: while high Muslim identifiers were more supportive of reconciliation in general; they were also less likely to endorse a rights-based understanding of reconciliation (versus a dialogue-based reconciliation).

In January 2016, academics in Turkey distributed a peace petition calling for an end to hostilities and to restart negotiations with the Kurdish movement. The Turkish government responded by opening legal cases, jailing academics, and dismissing them from universities. In the state of emergency following the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, the government's extended powers allowed them to fire thousands of civil servants from every branch of government, including thousands of academics. This increased the number of academics who organized to form and teach in academic collectives. The current study evaluates how politicization occurs in scholars removed from the university environment. Traditional approaches to collective action and politicization suggest that empowerment is an important catalyst in politicization and continuation of collective political engagement. With the social and political restrictions that decree law dismissals place on scholars, what is it that motivates them to politicize? The current study was conducted through semistructured interviews with nine academics who work in these collectives. Participants described their politicization in terms of previous practice, reaction to injustice, and ideals of academia and academic freedom. They further evaluated current and prospective functions and possible barriers to academic collectives. Finally, although somewhat ambivalent, participants discussed feelings of efficacy, psychosocial support, and senses of solidarity and liberation in terms of being empowered. Their perspectives provide an opportunity to understand how and where academics engage in scholar activism for an independent and free academia in the context of consolidated political oppression.

Looking at the Kurdish conflict, we examined how Kurds and Turks in Turkey and in diaspora (Belgium) construe reconciliation and how they approach reconciliation and intergroup forgiveness. Kurds' construals of reconciliation tapped into seven themes, grouped as dialogue-based construal of reconciliation (themes: dialogue, recognition, emotions and peace) vs. rights-based construal (themes: identity rights, freedom and confederative rights). Turks' construals of reconciliation covered eight themes, grouped as unity-based construal of reconciliation (themes: unity, rights, dialogue, recognition, and emotions), disarming PKKbased construal of reconciliation (themes: disarming PKK and peace) and rejecting reconciliation (theme: rejection of reconciliation). Kurds endorsing the emotion and dialogue themes and Turks endorsing a unity-based construal of reconciliation were more forgiving of the other group. Implications of these different meanings and relationships of reconciliation are discussed.

Academic Collective Action (ACA) stands as a small-scale collective action for social change toward liberation, independence and equity in academia. Academic collectives in Turkey, as an example of ACA, prefigure building academia outside the university by emphasizing the extent to which neoliberal academia has already prepared the groundwork for more recent waves of oppression. In this research, we aim to reveal the manifestations of neoliberalism in ACA as captured with prominent social/political psychological concepts of collective action. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 dismissed academics to understand the social and political psychological processes in academic collectives. The narrations of ACA were accompanied by manifestations of neoliberalism as experienced by dismissed academics. We found that, as follows from the existing conceptual tools of collective action, neoliberalism serves as an embedded contextual factor in the process of ACA. This becomes mostly visible for grievances but also for collective identifications, politicization, motivations, finding/allocating resources and sustaining academic collectives. We provide a preliminary basis to understand the role of neoliberalism in organization, mobilization and empowerment dynamics of collective action.