Turkish Folk Music between Ghent and Turkey

Shaped by the processes of migration, diasporization and cosmopolitanization, musical performance conditions and contexts constantly change, while new musical forms emerge and evolve. The development of Turkish folk music is well-documented and provides rich material for study in the motherland and in the diaspora. This book explores, describes, interprets and links musical, contextual and functional aspects of Turkish folk music in contemporary Turkey and the Turkish diaspora in the Belgian city of Ghent.

The Turkish presence in Ghent is particularly interesting in its size (approximately ten per cent of the population) and constitution (mostly originating in the West Anatolian town of Emirdağ). Anchored in detailed ethnographic reality, this book expands our views on what Turkish folk music signifies in the early twenty-first century, and adds to the understanding and appreciation of this multifaceted, topical musical phenomenon.

This book’s multi-sited, transnational and comparative outlook is unique, with an added dimension generated by the inclusion of rural and small-town contexts that complement the urban perspective. It makes new contributions to scholarship in this area by including the transcription and analysis of performance styles, the evaluation of Turkish Radio and Television discourses and practices, and the exploration of understudied research contexts of Ghent and Emirdağ.