The politics of religious and the ethnic identity among Kurdish Alevis at homeland and in diaspora

One of the crucial elements of a diaspora is to dream about a real or imaginary homeland that is central to the diasporic communities’ mind and their everyday roles as political and social subjects. To date, homeland politics in the diaspora has been mainly associated with ethnic groups such as Jews, Armenians, Kurds, Tamils, and Palestinians and so on while “religious diasporas” have not received much attention in the contemporary literature. In migration studies, terms such as, “travelling cultures”, “travelling religion”, or “migrating religion” have contributed to our understanding of the development of diasporic faith/religion through the establishment of religious-based organisations, networks and spaces where faith communities re-create their religious, economic and socio-cultural places, structures and resources. This helps them to recover, revive, disseminate and maintain their faith in the diaspora as well as maintain links with the homeland through cultural events, inviting religious and political leaders to their settlement countries. The Alevi case is a good example. This chapter focuses on the transnational dynamics of Alevi movements and explores their ethnic and religious politics in their homeland and in the diaspora.