The Project
Identity and migration: Christian minorities in the Middle East and in the diaspora.
Winner
Robert ter Haar Romeny
Leiden University
Faculty of Theology
Leiden, The Netherlands
www.leidenuniv.nl/gg/
After graduating cum laude from Leiden University in The Netherlands in 1992 with an M.A. in Semitic Languages and Civilizations, Dutchman Bas ter Haar Romeny, 38 years old, went on to earn an M.A. in Theology where he graduated cum laude in 1993. This was followed by the award of a Doctorate cum laude (the highest degree classification in the Netherlands) in 1997. Subsequently Romeny held postdoctoral positions in Oxford, Leiden, and Jerusalem. Currently he is a Lecturer in Old Testament Studies in the Faculty of Theology at Leiden University and Director of the PIONIER project ’The Formation of a Communal Identity among West Syrian Christians.
Award
€1,199,196
Project Description
This project aims at studying the transformation of the identity of Christian minorities from the Middle East under the influence of modernity, and more specifically, the Diaspora(*) situation in several member states of the European Union and the United States. The project will focus on the Syrian, Coptic and Byzantine Orthodox communities.
The project focuses on those parts of the cultural heritage which are most concerned with the positioning of the various groups in the original context of an Islamic majority, and in our times, the context of a secular, in many respects post-Christian society. The focus enables us to perform comparative research in two way
- We will compare how these groups perceive their identities in the historic, geographic, religious, and political contexts of the Middle East and the diaspora.
- The fact that most of these groups are present in more than one diaspora country allows us also to compare the influence of the contexts offered by these states on the transformation of group identities.
We will have the variables at our disposal to determine whether the self- perception and strategy of these groups in their new context are determined by the structure or policy of the receptor countries, by factors inherent in the culture of the groups themselves, or by both. Determining the role played by religion in these processes will be a major concern.
Our approach will not only help in shedding light on the history and present situation of a number of active and influential communities; it will also contribute to the structure-culture debate with regard to influences on the development of the social position of immigrant groups, as well as to the study of transnationalism and diaspora formation. Thus the project will provide data to help the receptor states and their immigrants determine their approach to each other in the future.
(*) Definition - Diaspora:
The term diaspora (Ancient Greek: "a scattering or sowing of seeds") is used (without capitalization) to refer to any people or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their traditional ethnic homelands, being dispersed throughout other parts of the world, and the ensuing developments in their dispersal and culture. Originally, the term Diaspora (capitalized) was used to refer specifically to the populations of Jews exiled from Judea in 586 BCE by the Babylonians, and Jerusalem in 135 CE by the Roman Empire. This term is used interchangeably to refer to the historical movements of the dispersed ethnic population of Israel, the cultural development of that population, or the population itself. The probable origin of the word is the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy 28:25, "thou shalt be a diaspora (Greek for dispersion) in all kingdoms of the earth". The term has been used in its modern sense since the late twentieth century. The academic field of diaspora studies was established in the late twentieth century in regard to the expanded meaning of diaspora. (Source: Wikipedia)
