Paper short abstract:

This paper will investigate the creation of a portable museum on a festival site in Turkey. On the basis of the transformation of the traditional new year celebration in Turkey, I would like to interpret how the display shows ethnic and artistic aspects of the Kurdish culture.

Paper long abstract:

This paper, using fieldwork conducted in Diyarbakir, Turkey as a focus, will investigate the creation of a portable museum on a festival site in Turkey. On the basis of the transformation of the Newroz/Nevruz (New Year) celebration in Turkey, I will discuss the creation of an un-conventional museum on a festival site. I am interested in investigating the ideological ways in which Kurdish national movement and the Turkish State have appropriated the Newroz/Nevruz tradition in their political history. In the case of Newroz (the Kurdish version of the festival), the Turkish State first ignored this tradition and did not give any role to Newroz in its highly politicized repertoire of festivals. However, subsequently the popularity and the wide acceptance of Newroz among the Kurdish population in Turkey motivated the Turkish State to appropriate this already invented tradition by the Kurds in Turkey. The "dynamic adaptation" of Newroz by the Kurds of Turkey made the Turkish Republic try to "re-traditionalize" Nevruz (the Turkish version) which had been almost forgotten in the official sphere.

The proposed paper is about the role of a big tent functioning as a one-day-long museum at the Kurdish Newroz festival site. I would like to interpret the display and its attached position in the Newroz festival and how the display shows ethnic and artistic aspects of the Kurdish culture and people. What is seen here represents the artistic notions of the Kurdish culture's "subjunctive mood," in Victor Turner's words, the mood of desire and possibility.