The emergence of Alevism as an ethno-religious identity

Editorial: Alevi Kurds: History, Politics and Identity

“…When we approached him for an interview to be included in this special issue on Alevi Kurds, he said that it provided him an opportunity to reflect on how his understanding of Alevism and Alevi identity has evolved over the thirty years in which he has written about these issues. This late development of Alevi studies reflects the fact that the largest group of Alevis, those in Turkey, have experienced generations of assimilationist "Turkification" and "sunnification" policies that has rendered them officially invisible, whilst in the diaspora it has been assumed that they are Turks and therefore Muslim (Jenkins et al, 2018;Cetin, 2014;Aydın, 2018;Gezik & Gultekin, 2018). The term "Alevi" is itself contested as it is generally seen as an umbrella term for groups that are found mainly in central Turkey but also scattered elsewhere in the Balkans and the Middle East, along with diasporic communities largely in Europe (Dressler, 2013;Özkul, 2019;Aydın, 2020;Karakaya-Stump, 2020).…”