Voices of the Disenfranchized: Knowledge Production by Kurdish-Yezidi Refugees from Below (Mobility & Politics)

Over a million Kurdish-Yezidi refugees are dispersed across European cities and towns. However, they are neither recognized as a distinct community of stateless immigrants nor as a distinct European ethnic or religious minority. They are frequently utilized as data sources without having a voice to address their challenges. This oral testimony project, moving beyond, but contributing to, conventional academic research, provides these communities with a space to tackle multiple questions in their own languages and with their own voices. The book seeks to answer what drives their departures from their home countries, how they escape, what shapes their lives in receiving cities, and finally, how homeland affairs influence their lives in new environments. By addressing all these themes, this book presents refugee-centric knowledge by and with refugees as objects and subjects of their narratives and transcends neoliberal humanitarian, state-centric, and colonial hegemonic epistemes that limit refugees' epistemic capabilities and viewpoints. Foreword Acknowledgments Contents List of Abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction Context of the Kurdish-Yezidi Population Emergence of Kurdish-Yezidi Refugee Movement Knowledge Production and Kurdish-Yezidi Refugees Refugee-Centric Episteme and Kurdish-Yezidi Self-Representation Process of Interviews and Data Collection My Positionality as a Refugee Researcher in the Process of Knowledge Production Structure of the Book References Chapter 2: Homeland Conditions: “Speaking Kurdish Was Equal to a Crime” The Roots of Discrimination Constant Persecution Language of Emotions Statelessness References Chapter 3: Escape: “I Had Seen the Deaths of My Children with My Own Eyes” Smuggler Networks Country Search Survival Solidarity Chapter 4: Asylum Processes and Challenges: “We Neither Die nor Live but Receive Some Breath” Refugee Camp Abandonment and Discrimination Exploitation Liminality Chapter 5: Toward Integration: “We Cannot Achieve Integration Without Struggle” Negligence Bureaucratic Burden Unsettledness Social Isolation Struggle for Integration Criminalization Chapter 6: Self-Governance from Below: “Self-Help Services Are Necessary to Mitigate Our Suffering” Identity Re-construction Community Creation Self-Governance Intra-community Affairs Critical Expressions Reference Chapter 7: Exile: “I Have Not Dreamed of Being Here Since I Still Live There” Uprootedness Being Lost Homeland Connection Committed Mobilization Reference Chapter 8: Conclusion Refugee Production Europe in Refugees’ Viewpoint Refugees’ Constraints and Agency in the Integration Process Contradiction of Exile Homeland Dilemma Final Words References Appendix A: Interview Questions Personal Profile List of Interviewed Participants References Index