Decolonial and Intersectional Approach to Media Witnessing: Alevi Persecutions and Political Mobilisation Through Media

Alevis are a persecuted ethno-religious community based in Turkey whose members have settled in various European countries since the 1960s. From the early years of the Turkish Republic, the broader Alevi community has witnessed through media the massacres that have befallen some of their members. The paper analyses Alevi media witnessing through two cases: Madımak (1993) and Sürgü (2012). While witnessing the Madımak massacre through mainstream Turkish media mobilised members of the community to form the Alevi movement, witnessing the attack on a family through Alevi media enabled them to prevent the massacre. Examining the cases of Madımak and Sürgü, the paper calls for a decolonial and intersectional approach to media witnessing. Critically engaging with the concept of media witnessing, the paper argues that the political potentials of media witnessing are mainly activated through drawing on collective memories of violence and atrocities. It also demonstrates the limitations of the political potentials of media witnessing without employing an intersectional lens towards different systems of power based on gender, ethnicity and so on.