This project supports the dissertation research of a graduate student in anthropology, studying the process of national identity formation among Bulgarian Turkish citizens who have recently emigrated from Bulgaria to Turkey and are being assimilated as national Turks. The student will reside in a medium sized city where many Bulgarian Turks have settled. Using ethnographic methods of participant observation and structured interviews as well as archival research, the student will study how the national state has attempted to define the "official" Turkish national identity, and how Bulgarian Turks have responded. The main question is how peoples of different, but historically related ethnicities interact to establish relations of dominance or equality. This research is timely and important as the world sees the intensity rising of ethnic conflict in Eastern Europe. Understanding general processes of ethnic relations through careful case studies can help us comprehend how states attempt to establish ethnic dominance, and how subject peoples maintain their own precious ethnic independence.
