British Institute At Ankara organized on 15 December 2020.
Lecture by Gönül Bozoğlu (Newcastle University) Discussant: Ayhan Kaya (Bilgi University)
“The minority Greek (‘Rum’) communities of Istanbul have endured hardships including 20th-century developments such as the Wealth Tax, the 1955 Pogrom (Septemvriana), and forced displacement. Now, the Rum population in Istanbul is drastically reduced but still vibrant, and there are diaspora communities in Greece – particularly Athens. The communities have little recognition in official heritage and are now ageing, with the consequent risk of a loss of heritage and memory. In her ethnographic research, Gönül Bozoğlu seeks to understand Rum memory cultures and to remediate this through a digital memory map and film, valorising personal, affective, and individual understandings of heritage, building a community resource, and creating platforms to promote wider historical awareness of this little-known history.
Gönül Bozoğlu is a Leverhulme postdoctoral Research Fellow at Newcastle University, UK. She undertakes research across heritage and museum studies, often combining anthropological methods with digital practice and filmmaking. Her first book was Museums, Emotion and Memory Culture: the politics of the past in Turkey (Routledge 2019). She is currently writing a book about the heritage and memory cultures of the Greek communities of Istanbul.
Ayhan Kaya is director of the European Institute in the Department of International Relations at İstanbul Bilgi University. He is the author of several works on migration and intergration in Europe, most recently Populism and Heritage in Europe: Lost in Diversity and Unity (London: Routledge, 2019).”