Christopher Houston

Bio: Christopher Houston is an academic researcher from Macquarie University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Islam & Politics. The author has an hindex of 12, co-authored 44 publications receiving 473 citations. Previous affiliations of Christopher Houston include University of Canterbury & La Trobe University.

An anti-history of a non-people : Kurds, colonialism, and nationalism in the history of anthropology

Abstract: In this article I seek to contest certain aspects of the 1960s revisionist history of the discipline of anthropology, narratives that can be accused ironically of an autocentric overestimation of the power of the imperial West in their very uncovering of its more or less hidden influence over the genre of ethnography and anthropological practice. Taking as my focus in this regard the case of the anthropology of the Kurds, I suggest that not only have Western ethnographic texts been relatively un-influential in the wider scheme of discourse about Kurds, but also that the recent decision of Kurdish publishing houses in Istanbul to translate and re-publish them indicates where in the present many Kurds feel an active ‘colonial project’ is continuing. The role and development of anthropology in Turkey, then, complicate this by now decades-old examination of the embeddedness of ethnographic discourse in Western modernist projects of political transformation. Resume L'auteur de cet article cherche a contester certains aspects de l'histoire revisionniste de la discipline anthropologique qui avait cours dans les annees 1960 et que l'on peut accuser, avec ironie, d'une surestimation autocentree de la puissance de l'Occident imperial alors meme qu'elle demasquait l'influence plus ou moins voilee de celui-ci sur l'ethnographie et la pratique anthropologique. Centrant son approche sur le cas de l'anthropologie des Kurdes, l'auteur suggere que non seulement les textes ethnographiques occidentaux ont eu relativement peu d'influence sur le discours general concernant les Kurdes, mais que la recente decision des maisons d'editions kurdes d'Istanbul de traduire et de republier ces ouvrages indique dans quel domaine beaucoup de Kurdes sentent aujourd'hui encore un «projet colonial»a l'œuvre. Le role et le developpement de l'anthropologie en Turquie vient encore compliquer le probleme, avec des dizaines d'annees d'etude de l'inclusion du discours ethnographique dans les projets modernistes occidentaux de transformation politique.

Islam, Kurds and the Turkish Nation State

Abstract: Can Islamism, as is often claimed, truly unite Muslim Turks and Kurds in a discourse that supersedes ethnicity? This is a volatile and exciting time for a country whose long history has been characterized by dramatic power play. Evolving out of two years of fieldwork in Istanbul, this book examines the fragmenting Islamist political movement in Turkey. As Turkey emerges from a repressive modernizing project, various political identities are emerging and competing for influence. The Islamist movement celebrates the failure of Western liberalism in Turkey and the return of politics based on Muslim ideals. However, this vision is threatened by Kurdish nationalism and the country's troubled past.Is Islamist multiculturalism even possible? The ethnic tensions surfacing in Turkey beg the question whether the Muslim Turks and Kurds can find common ground in religion. Houston argues that such unification depends fundamentally upon the flexibility of the rationale behind the Islamist movement's struggle.

Profane Intuitions: Kurdish Diaspora in the Turkish City

Abstract: Contemporary analysis of the ‘Kurdish question’ in Turkey has often enough noted the recent explosion of Kurdish refugees and immigrants to the major Turkish cities. Interest in the re-constitution of Kurdish identity in the metropolis, however, has been less evident. This article seeks to identify some of the main themes that need to be addressed in any such investigation. It begins by arguing that discourse on the ‘Kurdish question’ often frames the Kurds, rather than the Turkish state, as the problem. The response of the Turkish Republic to such a problem has been to assimilate the Kurds. The struggle against assimilation then is the common theme binding the multiple visions and experiences of the Kurdish diaspora.

Kurdistan: Crafting of National Selves

Abstract: Introduction Chapter 1: Nationalizing Origins: Imagining the Ottoman Empire and Kurdistan Chapter 2: 'Set aside from the Pen and Cut off from the Foot': Imagining the Ottoman Empire and Kurdistan Chapter 3: Representing Kurds: A Brief History of Kurds and Kurdistan in Ethnography Chapter 4: Kemalism and the Crafting of National Selves in Kurdistan Chapter 5: Kurdish Inhabitation of the 'Kemalist City' Conclusion

The Production of Space

Abstract: ‘The Production of Space’, in: Frans Jacobi, Imagine, Space Poetry, Copenhagen, 1996, unpaginated.