Inclusive victimhood: Social identity and the politicization of collective trauma among Turkey's Alevis in Western Europe

A mixed-methods approach to understand victimization discourses by opposing feminist sub-groups on social media

Opposing social movements are groups that have conflicting objectives on a shared social justice issue. To maximize the probability of their movement's success, groups can strategically portray their group in a favourable manner while discrediting their opposition. One such approach involves the construction of victimization discourses. In this research, we combined topic modelling and critical discursive psychology to explore how opposing groups within the feminist movement used victimization as a lens to understand their movements in relation to transgender women. We compiled a dataset of over 40,000 tweets from 14 UK-based feminist accounts that included transgender women as women (the pro-inclusion group) and 13 accounts, that excluded transgender women (the anti-inclusion group). Our results revealed differences in how victimization was employed by the opposing movements: pro-inclusion groups drew on repertoires that created a sense of shared victimhood between cisgender women and transgender women, while anti-inclusion groups invoked a competitive victimhood repertoire. Both groups also challenged and delegitimised their oppositions' constructions of feminism and victimhood. These findings add to our understanding of the communication strategies used by opposing movements to achieve their mobilization goals.

Silencing or silent transmission? An exploratory study on trauma communication in Kurdish refugee families

Trauma communication in refugee families is increasingly recognized as an important relational dynamic influencing psychosocial well-being, yet studies exploring interactional dynamics and meaning making at play in intra-family trauma communication remain scarce. This article reports on a qualitative study with Kurdish refugee families including parents (N = 10) and children (N = 17) resettled in Belgium, aiming to explore practices on trauma communication within refugee family relationships. In a multiple-phased qualitative design, semi-structured family interviews and participant observation administered in the homes of the participant families are followed by parental interviews involving a tape-assisted recall procedure to investigate observed intergenerational trauma communication and parent-child interactions. Data analysis shows parents and children seldom explicitly talked about the families' lived experiences of trauma. This silence was especially related to parental wishes to avoid their children's future involvement in violence. However, findings also indicate how the intra-family transmission of memories of collective violence occurs in many subtle ways. Four modes of indirect trauma communication could be distinguished: (1) focusing on the repetition of violence in the present; (2) transmission of the collective trauma history; (3) family storytelling; and (4) interaction with meaningful objects of the past. These findings shed light onto the interwoven nature of personal-familial and collective trauma and loss and illuminate the meanings of silence and disclosure in the context of the Kurdish diaspora. In the final section, we discuss our findings and outline its clinical implications for family therapeutic practices in refugee trauma care.

Reskilled and Integrated, but How? Navigating Trauma and Temporary Hardships

Immigrants are often pressed to show how they will contribute to a host country, thus proving through their conditions of entry and human capital whether they will be perceived as an asset or burden, and this is juxtaposed with the host country's institutions offering an improved quality of life, mainly through employment. Seeking employment is often a key factor to be economically assimilated, and in the case of highly educated Turkish migrants, the opportunity to reclaim their previous professional and quality of life statuses. Based on qualitative research, we have examined the experiences of highly educated Turkish people (n = 42) in the recently forced migrant population. Following events including terrorism and the coup on 15 July 2016, Türkiye experienced the highest forced migration in her history. With exiled Turkish migrants, the forced aspect of their migration prompts them to seek a host country that provides safety, and they are also driven to transfer their educational degrees and professional credentials. However, changing careers to become educated and certified in new fields takes time and resources, contributing to a fluctuating economic status and loss of well-being. Once this is regained, their economic situation is improved, but there is still the lost time from the immigration and transfer period. Thus, the process has positive and negative components, but understanding this nuanced process provides opportunities for policy reform that can shorten the time of re-education, increase employability, and support well-being.

The political downside of dual identity: group identifications and religious political mobilization of Muslim minorities

Research on the political mobilization of ethnic minorities has shown that dual ethno-national identification facilitates involvement in political action on behalf of the ethnic group. This study extends this research by proposing that a dual identity can impede political mobilization on behalf of another relevant in-group--the religious community - especially if this in-group is not accepted by the wider society. Using a sample of 641 Muslims of Turkish origin living in Germany and the Netherlands, dual ethno-national identity (Turkish-German/Turkish-Dutch) was examined in relation to religious Muslim identification and religious political mobilization. Dual identity was expected to be indirectly related to lower mobilization via decreased religious group identification. Further, this mediating process was predicted to be stronger for Turkish Muslims who perceived relatively high religious group discrimination. In both countries we found support for the mediating hypothesis, however, the moderating role of discrimination was confirmed only for the Netherlands. Turkish-Dutch identification was associated with lower support for religious political mobilization because of lower Muslim identification only for Turkish-Dutch participants who perceived high levels of discrimination. These findings indicate that a strong dual (ethno-national) identity can undermine minority members' support for political rights and actions on behalf of a third relevant in-group, and therefore qualify the social psychological benefits of the dual identity model.

Interpreting rights and duties after mass violence

In our age of human rights, there has been an increased focus not only on the rights of people and collectives harmed through mass atrocities and other injustices, but also on the duty to redress this harm. Building on Passini’s (2011) call for an integration of rights and duties through responsibility, I argue that movements in this direction are already underway. This integration follows, for example, from growing recognition of the complexity in victim and perpetrator roles. Another way in which integration of rights and duties in the aftermath of mass violence has occurred is through alternative meanings of ingroup victimization drawn by victim groups throughout the world. Specifically, based on a sense of inclusive victim consciousness, some have expressed and advocated perceived responsibility to ensure rights for other victim groups as well. This phenomenon is an example of the moral inclusion and focus on responsibility that Passini (2011) argues is necessary in our age of human rights. Examples of moral inclusion among victim groups are reviewed and limitations are discussed, as well as conditions that might inhibit or facilitate a sense of moral responsibility to go beyond individual and ingroup rights and protect others from harm and injustice.