We as a research team (Dr. Jane Holgate, Dr. Leena Kumarappan and  Janroj Keles from WLRI, London Metropolitan University and Professor Anna Pollert at University of West of England) are doing a research project on ‘Influences of identity, community and social networks on ethnic minority representation at work’ at London Metropolitan University and focusing on Kurdish people in Hackney, Indian people in Ealing and Caribbean people in Lambeth.

We are looking for Kurdish individuals (with different age, gender, education and occupation background) to participate in a focus group and to interpret the social and cultural meanings of 10 photographs of Kurdish everyday life in London including identity, community and work.

We are interesting in how Kurdish people conceptualize their identities and relationships with issues of community, work and social network in London. This ESRC funded research project would like to hear your voice, your opinion and give you an opportunity to understand  the way you feel, interpret, and make sense of your experiences in London through using images of Kurdish people taken by a professional photographer Jim Hodson and  RenkArt.

We only need approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes of your time and we will pay you £20 for your participation.

Date: Friday 13 November 2009

Time: 6:15pm

Venue: SOAS, Room FG08

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Organised by : Kurdish Studies and Students Organisation  at SOAS (KSSO)

If you would like to consider participating in this project, please mail Janroj Keles  j.keles@londonmet.ac.uk or mc@ksso.org.uk,  Telephone: 07875149068

Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University

31 Jewry Street, London EC3N 2EY

www.workinglives.org

This research project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and is being undertaken by the Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University.

Chair: Dr. Umut Erel of Open University

Date: 22nd Oct 09 @ 7:00

Venue: G3,  School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS) Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Organised by Kurdish Studies and Students Organisation (KSSO)

Abstract

This paper engages with debates surrounding the use of biographical narrative interviews in the social sciences. It draws on narrative interviews with different groups of migrants in Sweden, and focuses particularly on how the migrants narrate experiences of racism, discrimination and disadvantage. By considering the migrants’ narratives alongside an analysis of political and popular debates concerning migrant integration, we see that aside from providing access to a multitude of subjective experiences that help challenge dominant narratives, those dominant narratives are at the same time reflected in, and to some extent frame, migrant narratives. In the paper, I will explore both the content and framing of migrants’ stories about racism and disadvantage, and, drawing on Foucault, I will argue that attending to how power is exercised through discourse when analyzing migrant narratives, can take us a step further in using narrative interviews for understanding social inequalities, in terms of both the experience and reproduction of these.

Dr Maja Cederberg is Lecturer in the Department of International Relations, Politics and Sociology, Oxford Brookes University. Her fields of research are in the areas of international migration, gender, ethnicity, ‘race’ and racism, social inequalities and citizenship. Other research interests include work and employment, labour market and welfare policies, social and cultural theory, and qualitative research methods, particularly the use of narrative interviews in social science research.  http://ssl.brookes.ac.uk/staff/prof.asp?ID=315

Dr Umut Erel is RCUK Academic Fellow – Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance and Sociology Department, Open University. http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/staff/people-profile.php?name=Umut_Erel

Further information

www.ksso.org.uk

mc@ksso.org.uk

Speakers

Mr. Robert Lowe, Research Fellow, Manager of Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House

Mr. Amed Semo, Independent Researcher and Medical Doctor

Chair:Mr. Janroj Keles, Research Fellow, London Metropolitan University

Date: October 8th, 2009 at 7:00pm

Venue: Room V111, Vernon Square, SOAS University

School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Vernon Square
Penton Rise
London
WC1X 9EW

Abstracts of the seminar

Robert Lowe of Chatham House

The Serhildan: narrative and identity among Kurds in Syria

The Kurdish political and cultural movement in Syria has lacked prominent historical reference points. Compared to Kurds in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, those in Syria have a shorter ‘national story’. The violent events of 2004, described by some Kurds as the ’serhildan’ (uprising), have given sharper definition to the movement and provided a new potent symbol of victimhood. The serhildan has provided a new narrative which has altered the language and nature of the movement and has given Kurds in Syria a major reference point which is specifically theirs.

Mr. Amed Semo, Independent Researcher and Campaigner for stateless Kurds in Syria

Stateless Kurds in Syria” buried alive” a case of a cultural and identity Genocide.

The suppressive Syrian regime, in flagrant breach of human rights and international law, developed the racist, discriminatory Census Article 93, issued on 23/08/1962 and implemented on 05/10/1962, limited to Al Hasakah and Kurdish regions, which initially resulted in more than 150,000 and now increased to more than half a million, Kurds, who had been living in their own homeland, being stripped of their Syrian nationality certificate, thereby depriving them of the basic human right of surviving and prospering in their own country. Those whose nationality was withdrawn, and henceforth considered as foreigners in their own land, have no right to work in formal government departments, nor to own property, nor can they have access to education and health facilities. They cannot register their marriages and neither are they allowed to register their children in the state civil records. They cannot travel abroad as they cannot obtain a passport. They have no rights to practice some freelance professions such as medicine, law and teaching, which require a nationality certificate. In conclusion, they have no birthright to live in their own homeland. This racial and cultural genocide still continues today, after more than four decades….

Abstract of the seminar

The Serhildan: narrative and identity among Kurds in Syria

The Kurdish political and cultural movement in Syria has lacked

prominent historical reference points. Compared to Kurds in Turkey, Iraq

and Iran, those in Syria have a shorter 'national story'. The violent

events of 2004, described by some Kurds as the 'serhildan' (uprising),

have given sharper definition to the movement and provided a new potent

symbol of victimhood. The serhildan has provided a new narrative which

has altered the language and nature of the movement and has given Kurds

in Syria a major reference point which is specifically theirs.

KAYO and Gift of Hope Overseas Request for donations to bring medical help to people in Kurdish region of Turkey

Members of the Kurdish American Youth Organization (KAYO) are proud to initiate a fundraiser in collaboration with Gift of Hope Overseas, also a nonprofit organization founded by graduate students at VCU-Medical College of Virginia. In a series of relief efforts, the students have managed to deliver much-needed medications and have sent volunteers to Dogubeyazit, a city in the predominantly Kurdish southeast of Turkey. The children and women of the area suffer many health-related complications due to the lack of immediate medical attention.

In 2008, well over $200,000 worth of requested medications were delivered and distributed to the people in the region. Furthermore, a sonogram machine was purchased enabling the early detection of prenatal complications and allowing doctors to potentially save many lives. The delivery of the machine is pending upon the purchase of additional necessary laboratory equipment.

Now KAYO members plan to work together and with their communities to help raise funds to purchase mobile “lab in a suitcase” medical supplies and equipment. These mobile labs will then be sent to physicians and nurses in the Kurdish city of Dogubeyazit and its environs to enable them to conduct routine medical examinations onsite in the most rural areas. There is some urgency as many of the people in the region are in dire need of medical attention especially before the cold seasons approach.

KAYO hopes to raise the necessary funds for this cause in the next four weeks to help purchase and deliver mobile labs to Dogubeyazit.

We, the Kurdish American Youth, ask for your help in the form of donations and thank you in advance for your generosity.

To make donations via PayPal, please visit the KAYO website at the following address:

http://kurdyouth.org/articles/a0051.htm

Alternatively you make cheques payable “Kurdish American Youth Organization” at the following address:

KAYO (Lab in a suitcase)
1413 Commerce Drive
Plano, TX 75093

KHRP is pleased to announce the publication of Chief Executive Kerim Yıldiz’s ‘The Kurds in Syria: the Forgotten People’ in Kurmanji language edition.

Despite being Syria’s largest minority, the Kurds of Syria had never been the exclusive subject of a book until the 2005 publication of the English language edition of ‘The Kurds in Syria: the Forgotten People’.

Following two other works, – ‘The Kurds in Iraq’ and ‘The Kurds in Turkey’ – this book aims to provide an exhaustive account of the treatment of Kurds in the Syrian state and to evaluate their human rights situation against international law benchmarks, marked as it is by the persistence of abuses and discrimination.

By first providing exhaustive information about the Kurds, their language and customs, the book moves then to contextualise current concerns in their historical, political and sociological dimensions.

Considering the period up to the ‘War on Terror’, Yıldiz argues that Syria’s treatment of minorities is engendered primarily by the persistence of a feeling of insecurity within the Syrian state. Thus, he explores the situation of Syria’s Kurds within the context of Syrian history and of broader regional and international developments. The ‘War on Terror’ accordingly reinforced the perception that external threats to Syria are imminent, and provided the context for persistent human rights abuses of the Kurdish minority.

‘I am very proud of the forthcoming Kurdish translation of this book’ revealed Kerim Yıldiz. ‘ I believe its diffusion in the Kurdish regions will not only provide information on the plight of Syria’s Kurds to Kurds living in other countries, but it will also show them that the international community cares for their plight.’

The book was published this week by the Avesta publishing house in Istanbul.

The original English-language version can be purchased for £25.00 + P&P through the KHRP online shop

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

Mustafa Gündoğdu / Kerim Yıldiz
Kurdish Human Rights Project
11 Guilford Street, London, WC1N 1DH
Tel: 020 7405 3835
khrp@khrp.org –  www.khrp.org

Linguists must live in:  United Kingdom

KSSO is an umbrella organisation of Kurdish students societies at SOAS, Exeter, Southampton, Brunel and London Metropolitan university.

If you are a current or new Kurdish university student in the UK, we would like to get in contact with you in order to establish a Kurdish society at your university.

At each British University you can set up a society or club for any cause, and we at KSSO would like to help establish as many Kurdish student societies.

Universities provide a good environment to raise awareness of important issues, and with a Kurdish society it is possible to raise publice awareness on Kurds and Kurdistan. University Students’ Unions also provide funding for societies and clubs in order to organise events and activities.

During the annual freshers weeks many different societies and clubs set up stands and stalls in order to sign up people to their cause.

If you are a Kurdish student and are interested in setting up a Kurdish Society, KSSO will come and help out with setting up a stall and establishing a Kurdish presence at your university.

So please get in contact with us and we will get things going!

To contact KSSO please use the following methods:

Email: mc@ksso.org.uk
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kssouk
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KssoUK

We have also setup a Facebook group for Kurdish Societies here:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=114215953993

If you are interested in learning Kurdish Kurmanji, please apply now. SOAS language centre need 5 people to start a Kurdish class. If 5 students cannot be found then SOAS will not be able to offer this course.

Kurdish (Kurmanji) Beginners Course
A one-year course in beginners spoken and written Kurdish, at SOAS Language Centre in London

Duration: This is a one-year course with three 10-week terms

Mode of Attendance: Part Time

Description
The aim of the course is to provide a thorough introduction to contemporary Kurdish. By the end of the course, students will have covered basic grammatical constructions and acquired an essential working vocabulary allowing them to communicate within a limited range of situations in which learners are likely to find themselves. The language is presented together with the cultural context in which it is used so that learners are able to appreciate such things as appropriateness and linguistic etiquette when interaction takes place in the target language.

Method
The course is taught in English and Kurdish with coverage of the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing, and a balance between communicative activities, structure practice and grammar. Class size is limited to twelve to allow for close involvement.

Assessment for Course Placement
If you are not a complete beginner, you need to take an assessment in order for SOAS to place you on the course that is the most suitable for your language learning needs.

Fees for this Course
The fee for each ten week term is £255 payable in advance

For further details, including terms and conditions, required materials and how to apply, please visit the following page:

http://www.soas.ac.uk/programmes/prog14152.html

Contacting the SOAS language centre

Visiting address:
22 Russell Square, London WC1 – just around the corner from SOAS main buildings.

Office hours:
Monday to Friday 10am to 6.45pm
Saturday 9.30am to 12.30pm

E-mail: languages@soas.ac.uk
Telephone: UK: 020 7898 4888 World: +44 20 7898 4888
Fax: UK: 020 7898 4889 Int: +44 20 7898 4889
Post: The Courses Secretary, SOAS Language Centre, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG

Over the coming months the UK Kurdish Studies and Student Organisation will be announcing its programme of events for the 2009/2010 academic year.

In October KSSO will host three events starting off with a seminar on statelessness titled “Citzenship and Statelessness in Syria” given by Robert Lowe, manager and research fellow for the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, and Alan Shamoson. Mr Lowe is an expert on Kurdish issues with a special focus on Syria. The date of the event is October 8th at SOAS University, starting at 6pm in the Khalili lecture conference room.

On October 22nd Dr. Maja Cederberg of Oxford Brooks University will be holding a seminar on “Presences and absences in stories about racism and disadvantage.“ This seminar will take a broad look at issues of racism and disadvantage including the case of Kurdish communities.

KSSO will announce the times and exact room locations for these events closer to the event dates, but please do make a note in your diaries.

We welcome all new and old Kurdish and non-Kurdish students, as well as non-students, and hope to make 2009/2010 another successful year for KSSO.

For future events please see our new events calendar at the bottom of the page.

Details: An exhibition of paintings by Haydar Akboga and Cemo, book covers and texts on linguistic genocide – 4th September – 30th September 2009.
Admission: Free; Hours: Mon – Fri: 10 am – 5 pm; Sat: 10 am – 3.30 pm

Kurdish Book Fair (25th- 26th September 2009: 10am-5pm)

Both events are taking place at Stoke Newington Library Gallery, Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16 OJS. (see map at bottom of page)

To RSVP for this event you can do so via Facebook (please click here)

The book covers being exhibited are of children’s books in Kurdish that were seized by the Turkish authorities in Istanbul in 2006. As the Swedish news agency TT reported at the time:

“On the 25th August 2006, the Turkish authorities in Istanbul have seized 1,208 Kurdish versions of the books about Pippi Langstrump (Pippi Longstocking), the world’s famous fictional children’s character. They were sent on 7th August from Sweden by an organisation that runs an education
project for Kurds.The books had been sent for delivery to libraries in five Kurdish villages. As it is well known, Astrid Lindgren’s books about Pippi Longstocking have been translated into 85 languages and published in more than 100 countries”.

‘Human Writes and Kurds’ forms part of the Write to Ignite Hackney Word Festival 2009 that is taking place throughout September in Hackney, London. This year’s Festival, themed loosely around ‘Human Writes’, was launched on 4th September in this gallery space during an evening of spoken word with story-tellers, poets and performers Malika Booker, Baden Prince Jnr, Michael
Rosen and Neal Zetter.

The Kurdish Book Fair will also be taking place on 25th-26th September at this venue and within the surroundings of the ‘Human Writes and Kurds’ exhibition (Friday 25th – 10am-5pm; Saturday 26th – 10am-5pm). National and international publishers (from Sweden and Turkey) and independent bookshops will be participating in an event that will be of interest to many.

Artists profiles: Haydar Akboga: “I have studied at Istanbul Fine Arts University. I started painting when I was 7 years old and I was doing small sculptures … Since then, I have never stopped painting. I live in London at the moment. Everything around me is a source of inspiration for me. Since the geography l was born and raised in had no shortage of materials,

“l had to find a way of defining myself in order to make a stand: to be able to live, endure pain and still be on your own feet requires being very strong as well as adopting an artistic approach to events. At least, this is the case where l come from. l use almost all kinds of different materials:
oil, charcoal, acrylic and so on. Most importantly, l use myself in the process of making art. OR when the art makes me what l am”.

Cemo: Cemo started drawing while jailed. He was arrested on 12th September 1980 during the military coup that took place in Turkey and he was found ‘guilty’ because of his political views and Kurdish ethnic background. He was sentenced to two death penalties (in 1985 and 1987).

Born in Qulp/Idir in 1962, he commenced drawing with charcoal portraits. At the beginning, his style was in reaction to the government’s prohibited, restricted and neglectful stance. During his custody (he was released in 1991), he worked with pastels and his work became increasingly political. Between the years 1992-1997, his works, which were an artistic projection of
experiences under very difficult circumstances (including prison) continued to be exhibited.

From 1997, he started to do oil paintings on canvases. Between the years 1981-1995, he spent 12 years in prison (10 years with no closure) and 30 years of his life have been spent in exile. His contemporary works are mostly about ‘near-past events’. Since 1996, Cemo has been based in England. He currently resides in London. His paintings have been exhibited at various
festivals and venues including the Human Rights Association (HRA – Balikesir, Istanbul and Osmanbey branches in Turkey), the Ören Art and Culture Festival and the Mesopotamia Culture Centre in Istanbul.
—————-

The texts on linguistic genocide academically examine the manner in which the Kurdish culture, language and literature has been subject to censorship,