CULTURAL MEMORY AND IDENTITY IN CONFLICTUAL SPACES: A COMMUNITY-BASED PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH ON THE 1923 POPULATION EXCHANGE BETWEEN IZMIR AND THESSALONIKI

This dissertation analyzes the process of shaping, negotiating, and reinterpreting the cultural memories and identities of exchangee communities in the context of the aftermath of the 1923 Greek Turkish Population Exchange. It will mainly look into the cities of Izmir and Thessaloniki and how the heirs of both Muslim and Orthodox Christian exchangees reconstruct belonging and collective memory through the daily cultural practices, oral stories, music, and dance traditions of their respective communities. This research employs a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach that gives importance to collaboration, co-production of knowledge, and mutual learning between the researcher and the community members. As a result of oral testimonies, participatory fieldwork, and joint reflection activities in both cities, the study uncovers the way community members deal with memories of displacement, loss, and home, besides forming new avenues of intercultural dialogue and reconciliation. This study combines Pierre Bourdieu's "theory of practice" with ideas from memory studies to examine how cultural practices serve as dynamic locations of memory and identity transmission across generations. The argument is made that the exchange of populations is not a bygone historical event but rather a process that constantly influences the social relations and self-identity of the descendants of the displaced families. Ultimately, this study aims at contributing to the broader fields of memory studies, migration studies, and participatory research by developing an innovative, collaborative framework that examines the Population Exchange with exchangee communities rather than about them, redefining how post-conflict memories are researched, represented, and understood.