Making Sense of Homelessness and Homemaking in the Context of Conflict-Induced Displacement: A Feminist Perspective on Sur, Nusaybin and Berlin 2015-21

• Applicant: Iclal Ayse Kücükkirca, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 498329462

There are approximately 100 million of homeless people around the world, and a further 1.6 billion lack adequate housing. Rough sleeping is only one form of homelessness. This study aims to make sense of difficulties arising from homelessness caused by displacement and to understand the difficulties, empowerment and coping mechanisms associated with homemaking practices. Based on the narratives and memories of displaced people (DP), the study focuses particularly on women who had to leave their homes during urban armed conflicts in the cities of Sur and Nusaybin in Turkey’s Kurdish region in 2015 and 2016 and who subsequently went to Berlin as DP. The key concept of this study is the home place, which will be used as a theoretical axis by emphasizing the distinction between the public and private home place, not because private and public homes (neighborhood, city, homeland) are completely disconnected from one other but rather as a means of exposing different aspects of both realms without ignoring the interrelation between the two. In addition to its innovative bipartite conceptual aspect, this study will be one of the first to focus on the 2016 displacement. The proposed study brings together two bodies of literature: that of displacement studies, to make sense of the lost home/homelessness and to provide historical context for this displacement, and that of the home place, from particularly drawing from the disciplines of philosophy, geography and anthropology. Qualitative approaches are indispensable because only through the narratives of DP can the meanings of home and homelessness be understood in depth. The semi-structured deep and narrative interview is the most suitable form of interview for this study because both parties in the interview are given space. A gender-sensitive methodology is also indispensable because the home is a place that is used by and associated with women. The main research question is: What are the different meanings of home and homelessness (both public and private) that are expressed by DP from Sur and Nusaybin and by those who went to Berlin? Specifically the research aims to analyze: 1. The displacement that occurred in 1992–1996 in Turkey’s Kurdish region, since most of the DP who lost their homes during the 2015–2016 urban armed conflicts had also been victims of that previous displacement, 2. The displacement that occurred in 2015–2016 in Sur and Nusaybin, 3. Difficulties related to homelessness in the narratives of DP in Nusaybin, Sur and Berlin, 4. Difficulties, empowerment mechanisms and coping strategies of homemaking in the narratives of DP in Nusaybin, Sur and Berlin. The study has six complementary outputs: a monograph, an article, a position paper, a workshop, a digital story map and two publicity events.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants