Turkish immigration, art and narratives of home in France

By Annedith Schneider

Turkish immigration, art and narratives of home in France argues for a cultural, rather than a sociological or economic, approach to understanding how immigrants become part of their new country. In contrast to the language of integration or assimilation which evaluates an immigrant's success in relation to a static endpoint (e.g. integrated or not), 'settling' is a more useful metaphor. Immigrants and their descendants are not definitively 'settled', but rather engage in an ongoing process of adaptation. In order to understand this process of settling, it is important to pay particular attention to immigrants not only as consumers, but also as producers of culture, since artistic production provides a unique and nuanced perspective on immigrants' sense of home and belonging, especially within the multi-generational process of settling. In order to anchor these larger theoretical questions in actual experience, this book looks at music, theatre and literature by artists of Turkish immigrant origin in France.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781526100627

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Turkish immigration, art and narratives of home in France

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Turkish immigration, art and narratives of home in France

Annedith Schneider

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Annedith Schneider 2016

The right of Annedith Schneider to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by Manchester University Press

Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA

www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data applied for

ISBN 978 1 7849 9149 4 hardback

First published 2016

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset by Out of House Publishing

For Melih, Teoman and Sinan, the centres of my migrant home

Contents

List of figures

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction: settling in

1Politics and belonging in the music of Turkish-French rapper C-it

2Home and back again: texts and contexts in the Kebab Show theatre troupe

3Home is where the laughter is: humour and narrative control on stage with Ayşe Şahin

4A Turk in Paris: Karagöz’s cultural and linguistic migration

5The right to (offer) hospitality in Sema Kılıçkaya’s Le Chant des tourterelles

Conclusion: settling in

References

Index

List of figures

1.1C-it (Seyit Yakut), from his video ‘Hikayem’. Copyright © Seyit Yakut.

1.2C-it (Seyit Yakut). Copyright © Seyit Yakut.

1.3C-it (Seyit Yakut) wearing a ‘73’ t-shirt. Copyright © Seyit Yakut.

2.1Kebab Show, from Fransa, ben de geldim. Copyright © Valérie Cuscito.

2.2Kebab Show, from Fransa, ben de geldim. Copyright © Valérie Cuscito.

3.1Ayşe Şahin as Selma Oyunoğlu in C’est pratique pour tout le monde. Copyright © Aurélie Gatet.

3.2Ayşe Şahin as ‘Vanessa’ in C’est pratique pour tout le monde. Copyright © Aurélie Gatet.

4.1Rüşen Yıldız backstage. Copyright © Ruşen Yıldız.

4.2Gürbet in her apartment. Copyright © Ruşen Yıldız.

4.3The journey home to Yaourtistan. Copyright © Ruşen Yıldız.

4.4Karagöz in the factory. Copyright © Ruşen Yıldız.

5.1Sema Kılıçkaya receives the 2014 Seligmann Prize against Racism for her novel Le Royaume sans racines. Copyright © Sema Kılıçkaya.

Preface

In the early-to-mid-2000s as I went back and forth between Istanbul and Paris for a completely different research project on Maghrebi and beur narratives in France, I became increasingly aware of a Turkish presence in France. Yet when I turned to the media or libraries to find out more about immigrants from Turkey in France, I was disappointed to find very little in my own fields of cultural and literary studies. Yes, there were important sociological and economic studies about French citizens with family origins in Turkey and even about their consumption of cultural work, but almost nothing about them as producers of culture. Knowing the vibrancy of culture in Turkey and among artists of Turkish origin in Germany, this lack of information in France sparked my curiosity. Attempting to satisfy this curiosity was at the origin of this project.

As the debate in Europe about immigration, especially from predominantly Muslim countries, became increasingly negative, I came to see that the kind of work being produced by immigrants from Turkey and their descendants could perhaps also provide a response to anti-immigration rhetoric that labels immigrants of certain origins as impossible to incorporate into mainstream French society on account of a supposed clash of cultures. On the contrary, the artists in the study could produce the work they do nowhere but in France, a clear sign of their belonging to French society – regardless of the language they use or the audience they address. Taking these artists’ work seriously makes it possible to see their relation to the societies where they live through their own eyes. Whereas political language can often only repeat the current ‘common sense’ notions about immigrants and can only frame issues in terms of either/or, the language of art allows one to say things that have not been said before and to explore the grey areas of both/and. I hope that this study will contribute to a more complex and nuanced understanding of immigrants from Turkey and their children in France, to see them and their artistic work as having Turkish, French and global connections.

Acknowledgements

The Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) provided invaluable support for the early stages of this project in the form of a two-year research grant. I am also grateful to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabancı University, which provided a much-needed sabbatical during part of the grant period. Thanks must also go to the students who provided support with research, logistics, interview transcriptions and photographs at different points in the project: Birin Topçudere, Olcay Özer, Adile Aslan, Sylvia Nicole Joss, Ceren Bezzazoğlu, İdil Kadıoğlu and Özge Olcay. And a separate thank you to the enthusiastic students in my seminars on migration and culture, where I first explored many of the ideas in this book. I also appreciate the many opportunities to participate in workshops and learn from members of the diaspora research projects organised by Alfonso de Toro at the University of Leipzig. My thanks to friends and colleagues near and far who provided encouragement, feedback and a sympathetic ear, especially my most constant readers, Pascale Perraudin and Nancy Karabeyoğlu. Thanks also to Ester Gallo, Pieter Verstraete and Aimée Boutin who read parts of the work at different stages. Finally, thank you to the anonymous readers and to the staff at Manchester University Press, who saw this project through from proposal to publication. The ideas expressed in this book, of course, do not necessarily reflect those of TÜBİTAK, Sabancı University or any of those who supported me during the research and writing.

An abbreviated version of Chapter 1 appeared as part of an edited collection, Perspectives on the ‘Migrant Cosmopolitans’: Narratives of Contemporary Postcoloniality. It is included here with the gracious permission of the editors at Peter Lang Press. An excerpt from Chapter 2 has been published in Crossings: A Journal of Migration and Culture 4(2) (2013); it is expanded and edited and appears here with the kind permission of the editors.

My gratitude to leaders in the organisations that support immigrants from Turkey and their descendants, especially Muharrem Koç at ASTU, Murat Erpuyan at A Ta Turquie, and Gaye Petek at Elele who kindly shared their time and knowledge, as well as access to their libraries. I am particularly fortunate to have visited Elele, met its staff and attended a few of its events before it was forced to close its doors in 2010, after twenty-five years of service to immigrants from Turkey and their descendants.

Of course, the project could not have been completed at all without the generous cooperation of the artists whose work is the subject of this study. They and their families have been unstinting in their hospitality and in sharing their experiences, insights and creative work. They have my most sincere thanks and respect.

Finally, thanks to my own immediate and extended families on two continents for their support and patience. You made this all possible in more ways than I can express.

Introduction: settling in

This book explores the intersection between the stories told by the adult children of immigrants and the many ways those stories are told or performed. Along the way, we will also examine how their stories counter, play with and sometimes play into public narratives about immigrants and national identity. In public debates about immigration, metaphors and images abound: home, host, guest, native, alien, borders, transgression, bridges, enclaves, assimilation and integration. Many of these metaphors and images evoke space and the appropriate use of space, which is only logical, as this discussion concerns the movement of people from one space to another. While one understands the reasoning behind such language, it is also important to explore its limits. How does it shape our ability to see and understand the experience of immigration? How does it prevent us from seeing certain aspects? How might immigrant narratives contribute to the creation of a new language and new ways of understanding immigration?

A key term in this book, settling, points to two important aspects of immigration. First, unlike the word settlement, which describes a fixed state (sometimes through coercion), settling suggests an ongoing process with some element of choice. Unlike the trajectory narrated in many older stories of immigration, the artists considered in this work have not ‘arrived’ at any final destination, either geographically or artistically. They are neither complete outsiders, nor are they definitively ‘settled’. Linguistically, culturally and physically, they move among cultures and countries. Second, settling, as in settling for, implies the idea of making do, of accepting what is not perfect or final. Just as migration is a process, it also requires compromise and flexibility, a willingness to accept that things may not be exactly as one would like – on the part not only of the immigrant but also of those already there. Settling, as a process, allows for the possibility of change and adaptation, which are key aspects of the creative work considered here.

As should be clear already, I see the idea of settling as a positive, ongoing process. It must be noted, however, that the semantic field of settling also includes the less positive and more historically problematic term of ‘settler’. In common parlance, the term ‘settler’ calls to mind those who represented a colonial enterprise in which they occupied positions of power in the colony and displaced indigenous people, as in the United States, Australia or Algeria. However poor or marginalised they may have been in their country of origin, in the context of settler society, they wielded more power than do present-day economic and political immigrants who move to a more prosperous country such as France. Despite the relative vulnerability of these immigrants and their descendants, media reports and populist politicians in the receiving country invert the language of colonisation to bemoan the invasion of their land by these new settlers. The work of the artists discussed in this book, however, makes it clear that the artists do not draw such a distinction between themselves and their fellow citizens, refusing the notion that the residency of one’s ancestors makes for more genuine belonging to the nation. Indeed, the work of these artists provides a useful reminder that national culture is always changing, requiring even those with long family histories in a given space to adjust and change. Immigrant settling may be more apparent, and is therefore a useful focus, but because no cultural space is unchanging, everyone is involved in settling in some way.

To explore the phenomenon of settling, this book focuses on artists in France whose parents or grandparents emigrated from Turkey. The need to see the lives of immigrants and their descendants from a new perspective, and specifically through their own eyes, is more important than ever, as Europe has become increasingly less welcoming of immigrants and ever more receptive to discourses that portray immigrants, especially Muslim immigrants, as irredeemably other. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that German values are Christian values and immigrants in Germany must adhere to those values (Van Renterghem 2010). In Switzerland, a referendum was passed in 2009 that forbade the building of new minarets, and in France, Nicholas Sarkozy in his term as French president from 2007 to 2012 welcomed a debate on national identity that often focused on how immigrants and their descendants were not part of that identity (Saba 2009). Even those immigrants who established themselves in Europe decades earlier are finding that recent debates seek to challenge not only their right to live there, but that of their children, many of whom were born there and hold citizenship. In France, for example, Sarkozy in 2010 proposed stripping naturalised citizens of their citizenship if they were convicted of certain crimes (such as assault on a police officer) (Roger 2011). Since native-born French citizens would face only jail sentences for the same crime, this constituted a direct challenge to the French constitutional principle that all citizens are equal before the law, and effectively would have created a two-tiered system of citizenship. As philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy noted at the time, the French Constitution does not allow one to distinguish among citizens who are ‘plus ou moins français’ (more or less French) (Lévy 2010).¹ In the end, in the face of divisions even within his own party over this controversial part of a larger project to overhaul existing immigration rules, Sarkozy withdrew the proposal in 2011 (Roger 2011).

The place immigrants from Turkey and their descendants occupy in France also has ramifications in the context of European Union (EU) expansion. During the 2007 French presidential campaigns, commentators observed a parallel between negative attitudes to immigration and opposition to Turkey’s admission to the European Union (Emery 2010). If immigrants from Turkey, the argument goes, are so poorly integrated, could Turkey as a whole ever successfully become a full member of the EU without drastically changing European culture? The discussion of integration focuses in particular on the so-called second and third generations,² whom the media and politicians often stereotype as anti-social and antagonistic to French values. Historian Patrick Weil, a specialist on immigration history, writes that 20 per cent of European voters are afraid that cultural difference will weaken nations (Weil 2010). Whatever their level of educational and professional success, and regardless of whether they, their parents or even their grandparents were born in France, young people who come from immigrant backgrounds lament the fact that they are made to feel like foreigners (or at best, ‘guests’) in France, and then also treated as foreign when they visit the countries their parents or grandparents were born in.

Politicians, journalists, economists, sociologists and political scientists all have their own metaphors and ways of talking about immigrants. Some of them are immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants, but their exploration of immigration proceeds in the third person, talking about immigrants, rather than allowing space for immigrants to speak on their own behalf. This book cannot completely escape doing the same, but it also aims to see what immigrants, or, more particularly, the children of immigrants, have to say for themselves – not in explicit accounts, such as might be gathered through interviews (although interviews also play a role in this analysis), but in a fashion that is at once more mediated and more direct, mediated through art, but direct in that it is their own expression.

This book examines the work of four young artists and one collective in music, theatre and literature, all of whom immigrated to France as small children or who were born in France to Turkish parents. Many aspire to professional careers in the arts and have achieved some recognition, but they are not generally well known outside their own communities. Through analysis of their artistic work and their comments in interviews, this book examines the techniques, metaphors and images they use in their art to talk about themselves, their families, their communities and their place in French society. Contrary to many media accounts of second-generation immigrants ‘caught between’ cultures, these young people are in the process of settling in and, through their artistic work, creating new definitions of home and belonging that claim simultaneous local, national and transnational homes.

Of course, it cannot be assumed that because an artist comes from an immigrant background his or her primary artistic concern would necessarily be to represent immigrant experience. There are certainly artists from an immigrant background whose artistic work does not take up issues of immigration or the experience of two cultures. That said, the artists chosen for this study are those at least some of whose work concerns the experience of immigration and growing up with more than one culture because it is precisely those narratives that allow us to reflect, however indirectly, on what it means to ‘belong’ to any culture: in other words, to question something that is often taken for granted by those for whom identity and culture are single and relatively unchallenged.

However creative and innovative, one might reasonably ask if artists can represent their community of origin, and one must proceed with caution in attempting to link the work of the individual with the varied lives of community members. But it is also important to clarify what we mean by representation. In the sense of representation as reflecting a larger community consensus, immigrants are just too diverse a group to make this argument convincing. In the other sense of representation as speaking for someone else, however, these artists (whether they intend to or not) do represent a larger community, inasmuch as they are recognised as Turkish, speaking both to what the community is and what it should be (in their own eyes). Their discourse is, of course, in competition with other often more conservative discourses coming from religious authorities and the official voices of the country of origin, both of whom claim to represent ‘their’ migrants.³ In this sense, creative work matters as another voice in the debate, whether it reflects a smaller or larger part of the community. Narratives of home matter even when they do not mirror the current state of the community, since with time, they may come to shape new visions of the community.

Identity

This study begins with the theoretical premise that identity is chosen, constructed and fluid, not given, and that communities and individuals use artistic expression in the construction of their identities. Identities may be focused on ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, or a combination of these or any number of other factors. This study, however, is particularly interested in the construction of ‘Turkishness’ in the diaspora, and asks what it means to be ‘Turkish’ when one is born outside Turkey and lives in, receives one’s education in and often votes as a citizen of another country. What kinds of identifications are created with the self-identified Turkish diaspora around the world? And do the descendants of immigrants from Turkey construct identities in connection with members of other diasporic communities?

This idea of constructing an identity has been famously explored by Judith Butler, who argues that sexual identities are the result of a repeated ‘performance’, or enactment, of gendered behaviour that cites other performances of gender (Butler 1990, 1993). In other words, each of us imitates already existing examples of gendered behaviour. This