Art, Gender and Migration in the Kurdish Diaspora: Intellectual and Cultural Production in Europe

by Özlem Belçim Galip

Overview

This book focuses on the cultural and intellectual activities of Kurdish migrant women through artistic and aesthetic forms of production in Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden and the UK. Using in-depth interviews with over 40 Kurdish women artists, Ozlem Galip examines how artistic, literary and cultural productions, incorporating the fields of film, theatre and music, are articulated within the structures of nation states, leading to the interrogation of the impact of western and local knowledge, patriarchy, the nation-state and globalisation. Galip also analyses how European policies affect the development of cultural engagement of Kurdish migrant women, and how such engagements help these women to integrate into European society.
Examining the gendered experiences of diaspora from all four regions of Kurdistan; Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, this book challenges ideas about gender, migration and art through the lens of women artistic production with a focus on women-led activism and the changing integration and migration policies of Europe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780755650613
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/19/2026
Series:	Kurdish Studies
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Özlem Belçim Galip is a researcher in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford and a former Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at University of Oxford, UK. She is the author of Imagining Kurdistan: Identity, Culture, and Society (I.B.Tauris, 2015).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Art, Gender and Migration

PART I: Theory, Concepts and Methods

1. Migration from Gender-critical and Postcolonial Feminist Approach

2. Redefining the Kurdish Diaspora in Europe: Kinship, Identity and Culture

PART II: The Politics of Agency and Exclusion

3. “Talent has no race, has no face - but it has a skin colour”: Opportunities and Challenges for
Kurdish women artists in Sweden

4. Citizenship, Identity and Boundaries in The United Kingdom: Integration or Cultural assimilation?

5. Art and Activism by Kurdish women intelligentsia in Germany: Counter-cultural voice within hegemonic politics

PART III: From Colour Blindness to Blindness to the Colours

6. Shifting Spaces and Gender Dynamics in France: The Aesthetic of Becoming in(visible)
7. Female but Foreign: Race, Gender and Exclusion in Belgium

Conclusion: A Comparative Analysis

Editorial Reviews

Shedding light on aesthetic and intellectual work among Kurdish women in five European countries, this book contributes to the widening of our understanding of how Kurdish women engage in society in Europe as women and as intellectuals. It also contributes to our understanding of variations across countries as well as similarities and transnational links.” —Dr. Anne Sofie Schøtt, Assistant Professor, The Royal Danish Defence College, Denmark

“The book has a very clear focus, the feminist-intersectional and post-colonial analytical framework is well chosen.” —Joost Jongerden, Professor, Wageningen University, Netherlands

From the Publisher