Radical Habitus: Trajectories of Youth Radicalization in Turkey.

RADICALISM; SYRIAN Civil War, 2011-; SECTARIAN conflict; SUBJECTIVITY

This article investigates trajectories and sociopolitical drivers of youth radicalization in Turkey in the context of the Syrian war and the Kurdish national struggle. It proposes a conceptual framework (radical habitus) to better understand contemporary radicalization phenomena. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic research, conducted between 2015 and 2018 in Turkish-Syrian border cities, in Istanbul, and in a refugee camp in Greece, I offer an anthropological intervention in the study of radicalization. Radicalization scholarship is often concerned with ideological factors and the immediate social circles of radicalized individuals while underplaying the macrolevel hegemonic forces that shape their lived reality and habitus. I argue that we must examine power relations, structural inequalities, perceived injustices, and young people's political subjectivities in order to better understand what propels radicalization. I propose that radicalization is a relational and gradual process triggered by a set of complex power relations between state and substate actors across religious, sectarian, ethnonational, and class lines, the interactions of which shape what I call a radical habitus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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