A Diverse Island in a Homogenising Context

Burgaz provides an excellent empirical case study of post-Ottoman conviviality, because the homogenisation process during the nation-building stage of modern Turkey triggered migrations from the island, especially of non-Muslims, yet the island’s population retains elements of its Byzantine and Ottoman diversity. In order to understand the historical and political context of this diversity, the homogenisation process and how the categorisation of differences were reinscribed during the transition from the Ottoman Empire to modern Turkish Republic, in this chapter, I explain the Ottoman Empire’s millet system and how the demographics of the island has changed following the domestic and foreign policies that have oppressed the non-Muslim minorities and the unrecognised Muslims, such as the Alevis and Kurds, in Turkey and on the island. I document the impact of Turkification policies during the building of Modern Turkey and international conflicts between Greece, Cyprus and Turkey on people’s everyday life. In this chapter, I describe the island life, its inhabitants, its nature, the seasonal population fluctuations and the division of labour on the island to give a sense of the life in Burgaz. Then, I set the historical and political context of diversity on the island and describe my methodology.