Identifty, informal institutions and collective action in Istanbul’s Rum community in the twenty-first century

Abstract

This thesis explores the contemporary Istanbul Rum community from a series of new and provocative perspectives. It focuses on Rum identity, institutions, space and collective action through the prism of recent challenges and developments. Drawing on theoretical traditions such as constructivism, communitarianism, new institutionalism and Subaltern Studies, and on an interdisciplinary methodological approach (archival research, participatory observation, in-depth interviews), it examines communal institutions as the basis of Rum political life. It offers a detailed historical analysis of Rum identity, its different trajectories in Turkey, Greece and Syria, and its profound relationship with the urban space of Istanbul, focusing –for the first time in the relevant literature– on secular, rather than linguistic or confessional aspects. Its findings suggest that due to historical pressures and legal grey areas pertaining to its corporate status, the community has developed a set of informal but robust institutions that revolve around philanthropic activity and the vakıf system. Combined with Rum education and healthcare, this peculiar type of philanthropic activity constitutes a uniquely Rum institutional architecture that may be seen as the community’s social capital par excellence and an alternative, micro-wellfare ‘state’ that defines the community, forms its elites and shapes the political behaviour of its members. Together with suggestions for further research the thesis provides a series of policy recommendations for the community’s sustainability and survival in the twenty-first century.