Understanding Minority Self-silencing: The Case of Circassians in Türkiye

Date

2023-8

Author

Akarsu, Albina Sıla

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

467
views

1404
downloads

Cite This

In the social psychology literature, majority and minority relations in a country have always been prominent. In literature, studies have mainly focused on the assimilation and integration of minorities and the perceived discrimination minorities face. This dissertation focuses on the self-silencing of minorities. Minorities can silence traumatic experiences and collective memories because of insecurity, anxiety, and fear. Therefore, studying silence in intergroup contexts could provide a new perspective for understanding majority and minority relations. For this purpose, minority self-silencing, which can be defined as wanting to say something (reacting) but remaining silent or concealing the identity, (1) to protect relations, or (2) to avoid discrimination, is examined in one of the minorities in Türkiye, Circassians. Two studies were conducted to investigate minority self-silencing. The first study provided insight into ethnic identification, perceived discrimination, and self-silencing of Circassians in Türkiye with qualitative research. Based on the interviews from Study 1 and the relevant literature, a minority self-silencing scale was developed. The second study tested the factor structures of the developed scale and predictors of minority self-silencing. The minority self-silencing scale included (1) censorship of ethnic identity and (2) self-silencing to discrimination. Knowledge of the mother tongue and individual discrimination positively predicted censorship of ethnic identity. Being older and conservative and perceiving collective discrimination positively predicted self-silencing to discrimination. Activist identity and embracing Circassian identity negatively predicted both censorship of ethnic identity and self-silencing to discrimination. The results were discussed in light of the literature on self-silencing and Circassians.

Subject Keywords

minority self-silencing, intergroup relations, discrimination, ethnic identity

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/104823

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis