“This must really come from within”: Kurdish diasporic narratives of solidarity as resistance and existence in Belgium

Br J Soc Psychol. 2026 Jul;65(3):e70090. doi: 10.1111/bjso.70090.

ABSTRACT

Migrant members of racially marginalized groups pursue their political struggle in places outside their land of origin. How would they resist racialized collective violence in the diaspora by engaging in solidarity as they acculturate to a new societal order? Combining traditional social psychological approaches of intragroup relationships with anticolonial and antiracist combative praxis, the current research examined (post)migrant Kurds’ narratives of solidarity as resistance as they shared their experiences of Turkish racialized colonial violence in Belgium. We conducted a mixed methods study combining in-depth interviews with researcher participatory truth-witnessing. We interviewed 24 Kurds (2 sexual and gender minorities, 10 cisheterosexual women, 12 cisheterosexual men) about their intragroup relations and Kurdish resistance against collective violence. Reflexive thematic analysis centring around intragroup solidarity showed that participants understood and practiced solidarity as resistance and existence in several ways. In the diaspora, they navigated resistance against Turkish collective violence, transnational repression and the structural challenges of migrational acculturation through diverse, multi-sited, multi-layered and liminal intragroup solidarity despite some intragroup exclusions, with a desire for intragroup unity. Participatory truth-witnessing revealed that political organization and critical consciousness are central to intragroup solidarity beyond ethnocultural cohesion.

PMID:42136162 | DOI:10.1111/bjso.70090