Managing invisibility : : dissimulation and identity maintenance among Alevi Bulgarian Turks / / Hande Sözer.

• Superior document: Balkan Studies Library, Volume 15
• VerfasserIn: Sözer, Hande,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, Netherlands : : Brill,, 2014.; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Balkan studies library ; Volume 15.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (252 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

In Managing Invisibility , Hande Sözer examines complicated invisibilities of Alevi Bulgarian Turks, a double-minority which faces structural discrimination in Bulgaria and Turkey. While the literature portrays minorities’ visibility as a requirement for their empowerment or a source of their surveillance, the book argues that for such minorities what matters is their control over their own visibility. To make this point, it focuses on the concept protective dissimulation, a strategy of self-imposed invisibility. It discusses cases indicating Alevi Bulgarian Turks’ strategies of dealing with historically changing majorities in their larger societies and argues that dissimulation actually reinforces the intergroup distinctions for the minority’s members. The data for the book was gathered during 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Bulgaria and Turkey.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- 1 Paradoxical Invisibility: Fortifying Invisibility for Empowerment in the Face of Disempowering Structural Invisibilities -- 2 Open Methods for Researching Hidden Populations: Epistemological and Ethical Issues -- 3 Dissimulation: Retaining Minority Identity while Pretending to be Part of the Majority -- 4 History, Historicity, Historiography: Externalizing Alevism from the Bulgarian Turkish Group -- 5 Alevi Bulgarian Turks’ Self-Perceptions of the Alevi Ways: “The Path is One; While Practices are a Thousand and One” -- 6 Dissimulation as In-Your-Face Disguise: Speaking Others’ Languages, Practicing Others’ Practices, Manipulating Others’ Places -- 7 Dissimilation and Assimilation -- Conclusion -- Appendix A -- Bibliography -- Index.