Nation building and neo-ritualisation : an anthropological analysis of the celebration of the Kurdish New Year (Newroz) ; Construction nationale et néo-ritualisation : analyse anthropologique de la célébration du nouvel an kurde (Newroz)

Abstract

National construction and neo-ritualization: anthropological analysis of the celebration of the Kurdish New Year (Newroz). This study deals with the gradual transformation of representations, beliefs and practices associated with celebration of New Year Newroz by the national Kurdish movement in Turkey. The research looks at Newroz as an invented tradition and explores the functions of this form of neo-ritualization in the construction of collective identifications with the Kurdish nation.Part 1 positions the integration of this festival with Zoroastrian origins in the symbolic repertoire of Kurdish ethno-cultural nationalism and describes the functions it performs in the context of the recomposition of state frontiers in the post-Ottoman Middle East. In the second part, the research focuses on the symbolic redevelopments undergone by the Newroz tradition after adoption of a Marxist ideology by certain factions of the Kurdish national movement starting in the 1960s. The research centres on the one hand on modification of the representations and beliefs associated with the New Year and, on the other, on the modification in practices associated with its celebration in the 1990s, from which point it became the arena of violent clashes with the security forces. The study then focuses on institutionalisation of the Newroz tradition by two competing nationalisms. The research initially focuses on the reintegration of the invented tradition, now written Nevruz, in the symbolic repertoire of Turkish nationalism, by detailing the unprecedented functions of the (re)invented tradition in this new context. In a second phase, the research explores the cultural policies currently implemented by elected members of the legal pro-Kurdish party holding municipal power in the south-east of Turkey and proposes an anthropological analysis of the contemporary New Year celebration by the national Kurdish movement in Turkey.The main theoretical interest of this study is that it resituates the question of the rigidity of invented ...