Rediscovering Kurdistan’s Cultures and Identities The Call of the Cricket

Rediscovering Kurdistan’s Cultures and Identities: The Call of the Cricket offers insight into little-known aspects of the social and cultural activity and changes taking place in different parts of Kurdistan (Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran), linking different theoretical approaches within a postcolonial perspective. The first chapter presents the book’s approach to postcolonial theory and gives a brief introduction to the historical context of Kurdistan. The second, third and fourth chapters focus on the Kurdish context, examining ethical changes as revealed in Kurdish literary and cinema narratives, the socio-political role of the Kurdish cultural institutions and the practices of countering othering of Kurdish migrants living in Istanbul. The fifth chapter offers an analysis of the nineteenth-century missionary translations of the Bible into the Kurdish language. The sixth chapter examines the formation of Chaldo-Assyrian identity in the context of relations with the Kurds after the overthrow of the Ba’ath regime in 2003. The last chapter investigates the question of the Yezidis’ identity, based on Yezidi oral works and statements about their self-identification.

1. Introduction (Joanna Bochenska, Renata Kurpiewska-Korbut, Karol Kaczorowski, Marcin Rzepka, Krzysztof Lalik, Artur Rodziewicz)

2. Between Honour and Dignity: Kurdish Literary and Cinema Narratives and Their Attempt to Rethink Identity and Resistance (Joanna Bochenska)

3. The Socio-Political Role of Modern Kurdish Cultural Institutions (Renata Kurpiewska-Korbut)

4. Countering Othering: Social Negotiations of Identity among New Kurdish Migrants in Istanbul (Karol Kaczorowski)

5. Translation, Power and Domination: The Postcolonial Explorations of the Bible in the Kurdish Context (Marcin Rzepka)

6. Ethnic and Religious Factors of Chaldo-Assyrian Identity in an Interface with the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan (Krzysztof Lalik)

7. The Nation of the Sur: The Yezidi Identity between Modern and Ancient Myth (Artur Rodziewicz)