How religious minorities develop transnational consciousness

Ceren Lord, British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow, explores the feedback effects between conflict and identity shifts.

More countries are currently experiencing violent conflict than at any point in nearly thirty years and this uptick is largely driven by conflicts in the Middle East since the 2011 Arab Spring. Ceren Lord’s project investigates how these post-2011 conflicts are not only making identities more salient but also spurring their transformation.  

Through multi-sited research into religious minorities straddling the Middle East and Europe, the project traces the development of new transnational political networks that are spurring changes in faith practices and the re-imagination of identity. This new transnational politics involves forming new bonds of ethno-religious solidarity that transcend, and have repercussions for, the nation-state and future trajectories of conflict.  

By illuminating how conflict is changing the ethno-religious landscape, this project will provide key insights into understanding the mechanisms through which conflict (both violent and otherwise) catalyses identity transformations across borders and how these identity changes can, in turn, impact political behaviour and thereby conflict dynamics.