Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Institut für Europäische Ethnologie

• Einstein Junior Scholar Fellow at the Institute of European Ethnology,
  Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
• Department Integration, Social Networks and Cultural Lifestyles

Profile

Adnan Çelik is an anthropologist and historian with a PhD in social anthropology from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He is an associated member of the CETOBaC (Centre for Turkish, Balkan and Central Asian Studies, EHESS), the LAP (Political anthropology Lab, EHESS), the IFEA (French Institute for Anatolian Studies), and the DFG research network Contemporary History of Turkey (Germany).

He is the author of Dans l’ombre de l’état : Kurdes contre Kurdes (Brepols, 2021), co-author of Laboratories of Learning: Social Movements, Learning and Knowledge-Making in the Global South (Pluto Press, 2024) avec M. Novelli, S. Benjamin, P. Kane, B. Kutan et T. Pherali; La Malédiction: Le génocide des Arméniens dans la mémoire des Kurdes de Diyarbekir (L’Harmattan, 2021) with Namık Kemal Dinç and co-editor of Kurds in Turkey: ethnographies of heterogeneous experiences (Lexington Books, 2019) with Lucie Drechselová.

A specialist in minoritized peoples, especially in Turkey, he is interested in political violence and discrete forms of resistance, intra- and inter-ethnic conflicts, memory studies, Kurdish history, particularly the Armenian genocide, and Kurdish transnational activism. His doctoral and post-doctoral studies, publications and scientific collaborations can be summed up under three main topics: (1) The times and spaces of violence, cleavage and conflict in Kurdish society. (2) The role of the construction and transmission of memory in the persistence or reconfiguration of intra- and inter-ethnic conflictualities. (3) Cross-border mobility and Kurdish transnational activism.

In his current post-doctoral researche, entitled «Kurdish Transnational Activism in the Divided Berlin of the 1960s Under the Shadow of the Cold War», at the Institute of European Ethnology (IfEE), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as an Einstein Junior Scholar Fellow, he focuses on the transnational activism and solidarity networks among the Kurdish migrant communities during the Cold War period and how they were manifested. Focusing on the divided Berlin of the 1960s, the project offers a new perspective on the contemporary political history of Kurdish activism, emphasizing the role of networks and transnational connections.

Publications

Books

• Avec Mario Novelli, Saranel Benjamin, Patrick Kane, Birgul Kutan et Tejendra Pherali. Laboratories of Learning: Social Movements, Learning and Knowledge-Making in the Global South, Pluto Press, 2023, 300 p.
• Dans l'ombre de l’État : Kurdes contre Kurdes. Une anthropologie historique des conflits intra-kurdes au Kurdistan de Turquie [In the shadow of the state: Kurds against Kurds. A historical anthropology of intra-Kurdish conflicts in Turkish Kurdistan ](Coll. « Miroir de l'Orient Musulman »), Brepols, 2021, 608 p.
• Avec Namık Kemal Dinç, La Malédiction. Le génocide des Arméniens dans la mémoire des Kurdes de Diyarbekir [The Curse. The Armenian genocide in the memory of the Kurds of Diyarbekir], traduit du turc par Ali Terzioğlu et Jocelyne Burkmann (Préfacée par Etienne Copeaux), Éditions Le Harmattan, Paris, 2021, 340 p.
• Avec Lucie Drechselová (eds.), Kurds in Turkey: Ethnographies of Heterogeneous Experiences, Lexington Books, London, 2019, 225 p.

Chapters

• “De l’infra-politique au politique : la politisation par l'enseignement dans les madrasas clandestines kurdes”, dans La domination politique en Turquie. Une analyse relationnelle dirigé by Benjamin Gourisse et Işıl Erdinç, Edition Karthala, 2022, pp. 123-146.
• avec Béatrice Garapon, “From Tribal Chiefs to Marxist Activists: Kurdistan from 1946 to 1975” in The Cambridge History of the Kurds, Edited by H. Bozarslan, C. Gunes and V. Yadirgi, Cambridge University Press, 2021, pp. 229-250
• “Challenging state borders: Smuggling as Kurdish infra-politics during the years of silence” dans Kurds in Turkey: Ethnographies of Heterogeneous Experiences, dirigé par Lucie Drechselová et Adnan Çelik​, Lexington Books, London, 2019, pp. 159-184
• “Kürdistan Yerellerinde 1990’ların SavaşKonfigürasyonu: Baskı, Şiddet ve Direniş” [The configuration of the 1990s war in Kurdistan: Oppression, violence and resistance] dans İsyan, Şiddet, Yas dirigé par Ayşen Uysal, Dipnot, Ankara, 2016, pp. 71-114

Articles

• Avec Joost Jongerden, « From Nazism to Pro-Kurdish Activism: The International Society Kurdistan, Silvio van Rooy and the Struggle against Communism in the 1960s and 1970s », Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 23(3), pp. 266–282.
• Avec Ergin Opengin, « Hommage à Alan Ward (1937-2014), héros oublié de la kurdologie des années 1960 », Plumas [online] 3 | 2023.
• « Tentatives d’éroder le déni colonial turc. Un aperçu général du travail de mémoire des Kurdes concernant le génocide des Arméniens » [Attempts to erode Turkish colonial denial. An overview of Kurdish memory work on the Armenian genocide], Résonamces, n° 5, janvier 2023, pp. 46-55.
• « États, tribus, islam : Les Hebizbinî et l’engagement tribal dans l’islam radical au Kurdistan de Turquie », Revue des Archives de sciences sociales des religions, n° 199, novembre 2022, pp. 93-120.
• ‘Keep your mouth shut in the day and your door shut at night.’ Intra-Kurdish Violence in the Shadow of the State: The case of Hizbullah in Kurdistan of Turkey, Kurdish Studies Journal, vol. 9, no 1, May 2021,pp. 37-57.
• Memory that holds onto words : A mini lexicon of the Armenian Genocide in Kurdish.Academia Letters, Article 196, 2021.
• « Soğuk Savaş’ın İlk Yıllarında Avrupa’daki Kürt Aktivizmi: Kürt Gençlerinin Enternasyonal Öğrenci Ağlarına Katılımı ve Yeni Bir Kurtuluş Ufku Olarak Sovyet Komünizmi » [Kurdish activism in Europe in the early years of the Cold War: Kurdish youth participation in international student networks and Soviet communism as a new horizon of liberation], Kürd Araştırmaları, n° 6, 2021.
• The Armenian Genocide in the Kurdish Collective Memory, Middle East Report, n° 295, Summer 2020
• Demir Perde’nin Batı Yakasında “Kürt-Dostu” Anti-Komünist Bir Kurum: Beynelmilel Kürdistan Cemiyeti [An anti-communist “pro-Kurdish” institution on the western side of the Iron Curtain: International Society Kurdistan], Kürt Tarihi Dergisi, n°41, Septembre 2020, pp.34-41
• 1960’larda Kürdistan Özgürlük Mücadelesi ve Anti-Sömürgeci Gramerin Oluşumu [Kurdistan's liberation struggle in the 1960s and the formation of an anti-colonial grammar], Kürd Araştırmaları Dergisi, n° 2, Février2020, pp.57-86
• Temps et espaces de la violence interne, Études arméniennes contemporaines, n° 12, pp. 123-138, 2019.
• avec Béatrice Garapon, “De l'exil à la représentation parlementaire : une nouvelle génération d'élites kurdes en politique (1946-1955) [From exile to parliamentary representation: a new generation of Kurdish elites in politics (1946-1955)]. Anatoli, 2017, no. 8, pp. 205-232
• « Mémoires du génocide des Arméniens à Diyarbekir: une présence par l’absence» [Memories of the Armenian Genocide in Diyarbekir: a presence through absence], Études arméniennes contemporaines, 2016, no. 6, pp. 5-35
• avec Ergin Öpengin, « The Armenian Genocide in the Kurdish Novel: Restructuring Identity through Collective Memory», European Journal of Turkish Studies [online], 22 | 2016