The translocal lives and communities of Istanbul's Antakyali Rum Church Guardians

This thesis investigates the lived experiences and translocal community networks of Greek Orthodox church guardians in Istanbul, Türkiye, the vast majority of which hail from Arabic- speaking Rum villages in Altınözü and Samandağ districts in Hatay Province. The church guardians and their families are part of interconnected communities that have migrated out to the provincial capital of Antakya, to the economic and cultural centre of Istanbul, and abroad to Europe. As such, I aim to elucidate how their translocal networks have allowed their communities and identities to sustain themselves on the one hand, while also greatly transforming them on the other. While other works have analyzed the broader Antakyalı Rum community in a variety of contexts, this thesis differs by focusing heavily on the testimonies and experiences of church guardians, and by placing them within the translocal network that Antakyalı Rum people have developed and sustained over the past half century. In order to explain not only this intense translocality, but also the impacts of urban regeneration, tourism, inter and intra-faith relations, non-Muslim institutions, and Istanbul and Hatay's contested history and memory, upon church guardian lives, this thesis' chapters are organized along regimes of space: Istanbul, Abroad, and the Homeland. It is my aim that this thesis shows that by dint of their position, church guardians live, work, and pray at sites of intersecting historical and sociological forces, which uniquely hinders and enables their participation in their homeland communities' mobility and transformation.