Mediatised culturalisation through television: second-generation Alevi Kurds in London

Abstract: 

Satellite television has not only provided migrant communities with stronger ties to their home countries but has also enabled second-generation migrants in particular to know more about their country of origin beyond their family ties. The aim of this chapter is to explore the ways in which Turkish television contributes towards the making of the transnational identity of the “twice minority” group of Alevi Kurds through what I call mediatised culturalisation. Drawing on seventeen in-depth interviews that I conducted with the second-generation members of the Alevi Kurdish community in London in 2016, I explore the role of Turkish television in contesting the boundaries of transnational social imaginaries of the second-generation viewers.