Homeland-Making among Cultural and Ethnic Kin: Ahıska Turks in Turkey Hulya Dogan* Radford University, Virginia Abstract Ahıska Turks are a dispersed community without a nation-state and, similar to other ethnic minorities of the former Soviet Union, their political powerlessness rendered them subject to persecution under Stalinist rule. Most of the Ahıska Turks interviewed for this study identify themselves both ethnically and nationally with Turkey, but their cultural geographic focus lies in present-day Georgia. By incorporating qualitative data collected through fieldwork in Turkey, this article investigates where home is for this group by asking whether Georgia still holds any meaning as homeland, or whether the location of the ‘homeland’ is shifting as the population resettles in Turkey. Introduction It is a common observation that the spatial and social displacement of people has been increasing around the globe at a fast pace, and this has resulted in enormous numbers of people being classified as refugees (Castles and Davidson 2000; El-Shaarawi 2012; Malkki 1995; Warner 1994). Ahıska Turks, as an ethnic group that does not have its own nation-state, have been living in exile for more than 70 years. In November 1944, the Ahıska Turks in the Soviet Union (along with other ethnic groups such as Khemshins, Kurds, and Karapapakhs/Terekemes) were deported in small groups to the republics of Central Asia – to the territories of Kazakhstan (29,497 persons), Kirghizia (9,911), and above all Uzbekistan (42,618) – where they were known as ‘special settlers’ since they were under administrative supervision. * Dr Hulya Dogan is an Adjunct Instructor in the Department of Sociology at Radford University, Virginia, specializing in transnational migration, refugees, and gender. She completed her PhD in Anthropology at Texas A&M University in August 2016, in addition to an interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies. She is a ded- icated instructor with more than 10 years’ experience teaching at university and high-school levels. She currently teaches several sections of the Introduction to Sociology and Understanding Culture courses, alongside working on numerous articles and books for publication. 1 Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism: Vol. ••, No. ••, 2020