Surveillances croisées et rivalité gréco-turque en Thrace occidentale : entre coercition et contrôle social

• Main Author: Jeanne Hersant
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Association pour la Recherche sur le Moyen-Orient 2015-03-01
• Series: European Journal of Turkish Studies
• Subjects: Western Thrace; minority; state policies; Greece; Batı Trakyalı
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/ejts/2693

This article examines the construction of a Turkish minority in Western Thrace from a historical perspective. It suggests that the identification of Turks in Thrace as a minority is due, first, to the fact that Greek authorities impeded the economic development of the region and its Muslim minority, and, second, to the Turkish state's promotion of Turkish national identity among this minority. In other words, this article deals with two concurrent state policies in Western Thrace, with particular attention to both the Greek and Turkish authorities' changing techniques of surveillance (among the Muslim population) following the warmer relations between the two countries that began at the end of the 1990s.