‘Two homelands and none’: belonging, alienation, and everyday citizenship with the expatriated Greeks of Turkey

Huw Yiannis Halstead*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

For the expatriated Greeks of Istanbul and Imbros – some of whom have Greek citizenship, some Turkish – citizenship is neither an irrelevance nor a panacea. Turkish citizenship provided limited protection for ethnic Greeks in Turkey, and Greek citizenship could only go so far to ease the burdens of their ultimate emigration to Greece. Moreover, their expressions of self and identity are altogether more complicated and malleable than the apparent fixity and dichotomousness of statism. Nevertheless, citizenship looms large in their experiences, in both pragmatic and affective dimensions. The acquisition, loss and performance of citizenship – even the very materiality of identity documents – are intimately connected to expatriate efforts to navigate the everyday experience of migration and belonging. Whilst the significance of citizenship thus goes far beyond mere words on an official document, these formal aspects of citizenship are nevertheless a part of, not something apart from, the lived experience of citizenship.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)432–456
JournalJournal of Migration History
Volume8
Issue number3
Early online date10 Oct 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2022

Keywords

  • Dual citizenship
  • Ethnic identity
  • Everyday life
  • Greece
  • Lived citizenship
  • Minorities
  • National identity
  • Turkey

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of '‘Two homelands and none’: belonging, alienation, and everyday citizenship with the expatriated Greeks of Turkey'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this