Women's Rights Research Seminar - From Kurdistan to Europe: Kurdish Literary, Artistic and Cultural Activism by Kurdish Women Intellectuals

Dr Ozlem Belcim Galip (Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellow, The School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford) gives a talk for the Middle East Centre seminar series, chaired by Marilyn Booth (Magdalen College). A movement is observable that sees Kurdish migrant women moving from oppression within a traditional, patriarchal society; ethnic oppression; and being stuck between secularism and Islam, to exhibiting a liberated agency that challenges the monolithic perspectives of social power. The aesthetic and intellectual production of Kurdish migrant women, which leads to the empowerment of women and advancement of gender equality in the Kurdish diaspora, has not been the subject of any notable research yet. By going beyond stereotypical portrayals of Kurdish women either reflected as a victim of honour-based violence or someone who suffers war or violent conflict in any Kurdish region, my presentation titled 'From Kurdistan to Europe: Kurdish Literary, Artistic and Cultural Activism by Kurdish Women Intellectuals' examines the activism of Kurdish migrant women in selected host European countries (France, Belgium, Sweden, Germany and the UK) in terms of artistic, literary and cultural practices in both the language(s) of the host countries and women's native Kurdish languages. The goal of this presentation is first to reveal the changing dynamics within Kurdish migrant women's mobilization along with their cultural engagements in the selected European states, secondly to examine the integration policies of the selected European countries within a comparative approach, and thirdly to investigate transnational networking and dynamics between Kurdish migrant women (labour migrants/refugees) in Europe, the agents of cultural production in their home countries (Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey) and other European countries.