The utilization of Obsidian, a natural volcanic glass, within the Anatolian communities between 8500 and 5000 BC cal. is the core of the project 'ObsidianUs'. Obsidians are found mainly in two regions Central Anatolia (Cappadocia) and Eastern Anatolia (Bingöl, Van Lake) and were transported over hundreds of kilometres the most probably through exchange networks. The mechanical properties of obsidians allow the manufacture of a wide range of objects through different kinds of techniques and methods of knapping and polishing. Objects are therefore mainly, for the periods under study –Neolithic and Chalcolithic-, tools and secondarily, bracelets, pendants and vessels. Obsidian is for archaeologists a key element to study multiple technical practices related to different kind of subsistence or craft activities: harvesting, hunting, butchery, treatment of vegetal and animal materials (bone, antler, skin, hide) and work of different kind of rocks. Obsidian reveals as well social practices: identification of exchange networks, funeral practices and ritual of foundation. Among the main questions, the way in which the communities adopted the raw material, the rhythms and modalities of the adoption depend on the regional diversity in obsidian procurements, in the economies of the villages and in technical traditions. At the present state of the research, chemical analysis on obsidians allow us to identify the roads of diffusion of the raw material but does not to identify the social mechanisms which were behind. Our aim is to identify such mechanisms with the help of a technological approach, to analyse the way in which the ancient communities manufactured and used their lithic tools, to better understand the organization of these communities and their social links. The French Institute of Anatolian Studies of Isatnbul (IFEA) and the Department of Prehistory of the University of Istanbul (partner 1) are associated within this project. The study of the archaeological assemblages (technological and use-wear analysis) is here based on a fundamental research on the mechanisms of wear held by the Laboratory of Tribology and System Dynamics/Centrale Lyon (Partenaire 2). Tribologists and use-wear analysts analyse wear phenomena with complementary methods.

Inspired by Albert Hirschman’ triptych (exit, voice, loyalty), forced loyalty is what people have to resign to when they are exposed to an authoritarian shift while unable to challenge it or to escape it through exile. It more precisely designates a state of subjection to a coercive power, and helps to understand its transformative dynamics at the individual level. The main aim of the research is to study how a drastic change in the political context can affect the intimate and social life-world of those who suffer from it. Indeed, the introduction of an authoritarian regime is never exempt of social, economic and cultural aftershocks. But these aftershocks are also felt individually and privately while affecting spheres of life, imposing redefinitions of the personal identity and worried expectations of the future. Our project can be assimilated to a sociology of fear, that at the same time shows attention to the conditions and the effects of fear, to the stakes and denotations that provoke it, and to its variations in intensity, sensitive expressions and lasting aftershocks. Four cases will be studied by recognized specialists of the area or period. Though heterogeneous—in their geographical, historical or “cultural” situations, their ideological orientation, their transition paths, or the social sectors they mobilise—the political turns under study have in common to impose to the people they affect to revise their anticipations and to adopt new ways of acting and new attitudes. Our aim is to focus on the self-reconfiguration work (travail sur soi) people are forced to when they realise that it is impossible to come back to the previous political situation in the short or medium-term. Living a bearable life, conquering new margins of autonomy that can be subtracted to state mastery, controlling the information about oneself, avoiding repression or even surviving… but also trying to remain faithful to oneself in order to be able to maintain an “acceptable definition of oneself”, and even enforcing minimal acts of resistance, all need the adoption of new schemes of action and perception, and the “deactivation” of the former inclinations, habits, ways of thinking, acting or being, that are henceforth not only maladjusted but also dangerous. The need of such a self-transformation particularly weights on social agents who belong to sectors that are the main stakes of the new regime and that are directly affected by the new political context. The intellectual, artistic, and trade-union fields—whose study will be privileged in the four cases studies—are such social worlds whose members are submitted to the necessity to revise their ordinary practices and to integrate new schemes of action and perception. The enforcement of new aesthetic norms, the censorship of dissident voices, the prohibition of the public expression of collective interests or claims… count among the first consequences of the establishment of an authoritarian regime and reveal the social transformations that result from it. The comparative study of these three fields in each country is intended to identify how their previous structure and social recruitment allow some flexibility and some margins of resistance to their members. As such, the research aims to give an original contribution to the analysis of authoritarianism by studying it in practice, from the perspective of the present or potential threats a coercive regime poses on populations or groups that are hostile to its project and restive to its power.

The necropoleis and the great tumuli of Pergamon and the Eolian cities of Kyme and Elaia represent a priceless archaeological heritage for understanding the political, social and cultural dynamics in a key region of Hellenistic Asia Minor. They offer a wide range of sociological and historical contexts: on the one hand they provide information on every stratum of the society, from the Attalid princes and the prosperous citizens to the more modest section of the population; on the other hand, the studied area offers a large variety of political, social and cultural situations: the residential city of Pergamon, Kyme (the heart of Eolid, which long remained under the Seleucid control), and Elaia (both an Eolian city and the naval base of Pergamon). This situation gives an ideal background to approach a series of questions that are under discussion in the scholarly milieu: 1. The structure of the society through the funerary practices and behaviors; 2. The transformation of the forms of the urban ideological representations under the influence of the Hellenistic kingship; 3. The cultural impact of the interactions between the capital of the Attalid kingdom and the autonomous poleis; 4. The transformation of local identities and the circulation of ideological models from the Hellenistic Kingdoms in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. Following the most recent research, our aim is to approach the funerary behaviors as a subtle and complex expression of the social, cultural and religious habitus that need to be tackled through new historical problematics and considered through their great diversity, both locally and regionally. In order to renew such approaches one first has to reconsider the archaeological documentation produced since the 1880s and create a collaborative French-German program with the teams already working in this area: the German archaeological mission of Pergamon and the French archaeological mission in Eolid. The project aims at developing a common strategy in order to enhance the exploitation of scientific data by combining the most innovative aspects of French and German research in funerary archaeology. Our goal is to constitute an interdisciplinary French-German team that will be capable of intervening throughout this three-years project based on different sites of the region and that will also be able to develop collaboration with the other Turkish and foreign archaeological missions. The case studies are the urban necropoleis of Elaia and Kyme, as well as the large tumuli of Pergamon and Kyme. A series of common methods will be applied by the main French-German-Turkish team, including but not limited to: - Remote sensing, geophysical and geoseismic survey; - Excavation of strategic areas, chosen after the result of the surveys, in the necropoleis and among the large mounds; - Double program of funerary anthropological studies (archaeo-thanatology and biological anthropology) and archaeometry analyses (physico-chemical and paleo-genetical) on unearthed remains; - Concerted archaeological, epigraphic, iconographic and architectural studies; - Global and joint archaeological and historical processing and interpretation of the achieved results. Fieldwork and laboratory analyzes will be accompanied by an interdisciplinary practical and theoretical training program for French, German, Turkish and foreign PhD students. The collaborative work will result in annual interdisciplinary meetings. The dissemination of the results will be carried out through joint publications of the preliminary reports and monographies, an international colloquium at the end of the program and a specific website dedicated to the ANR/DFG project. The conservation and the long-term presentation of the data will be operated by the iDAI-field system.

As opposed to studies which analyze the diffusion and circulation of practices, instruments, norms, and forms of knowledge as a stage subsequent to their localized production, the TRANSFAIRE project aims to study symbolic and technical instruments that are produced and reproduced by circulation. Instead of employing the notion of “transfer,” which assumes that there are elements which are allegedly “specific” to each of the regions concerned, our approach focuses on modalities of “trans-action”, and pays close attention to processes of translation and co-production of normative vehicles and of the fabric out of which politics is made. The project focuses on a broadly defined (post-)Ottoman Mediterranean as its main field of inquiry. Our goal is dual in nature: on the one hand, we propose a new approach to connections, concomitances, and interdependencies in which (post-)Ottoman spaces are to be considered an integral part, contrary to studies which limit themselves to considering exchange in terms of one-way diffusion and importation. On the other hand, we aim to draw up a revised chronology of the modalities of governance and extroversion of the Empire and the Republic, detached from the great rifts which have marked narratives of political history. The TRANSFAIRE project builds upon the results of the ANR-funded research group TRANSTUR in 2008-2012. It brings together 25 scholars from the fields of history, political science, sociology, anthropology, and geography, 9 of them being Istanbul-based. Its priorities are organized along three main axes: 1) The forms of materiality of political objectivization; 2) The analysis of devolutions and normative (re)investment; 3) The challenges and actors of translation. Each of these axes is treated by a small team, whose activities are coordinated by one member, able to work autonomously or as a part of horizontal projects. The general organization is structured around two geographical poles, one in Paris, the other in Istanbul. At each one of the two sites a permanent correspondent, recruited as a postdoctoral research assistant, sees to the organization of the team’s activities and assists the main coordinator, while ensuring the pooling and sharing of activities amongst the team members. Bimonthly seminars ensure coherence and exchange within each “pole.” Yearly work meetings, held in executive session, will allow individual difficulties to be addressed, completed work to be presented, and publishing projects to be discussed by the entire team. Scientific dissemination and visibility will be carried out by multiple methods: academic workshops; an international conference presenting the results of completed research; collaboration with members of the TEPSIS LabEx (EHESS / HESAM), of which the Centre for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan and Central Asian Studies (CETOBAC), the main partner of the current project, is an integral part; public outreach activities; and the creation of an internet site. The TRANSFAIRE project will equally contribute to higher education and training: the seminars will contribute to expanding the offer of academic courses in Paris and Istanbul; graduate workshops will be organized, and presentations for undergraduate students are also planned. In sum, the financial support of the ANR will reinforce an active research network already well in place, and will help promote the formulation of generalizable theoretical ideas. This will be made possible by the broad multidisciplinary background of the team members, as well as their profound knowledge of the historical and geographical themes under discussion. The knowledge produced by this project will equally be of interest to an ever-growing number of scholars, decision-makers, and members of the general public, given the significant transformations of the regional equilibrium in which are engaged the current states of the post-Ottoman space.

The aim of LAJEH (refugee in Arabic) is to deepen knowledge on forced migration in the Middle East, analysing current refugee flows in their historical and regional contexts. Through a cross-disciplinary and empirically-driven approach, it analyses the implications of forced migrations on the host countries and the latter’s response. This research project will focus not only on registered refugees but also on the wide range of displaced and migrant groups affected by conflicts and their consequences. Three interrelated fields of research are investigated: forced migrants’ terms of integration in the host country economy; the establishment of migrants’ solidarity networks at local, national and regional levels; and the impacts of forced migrants on the host country’s political fabric. Continued political crises and conflicts are still generating large flows of migrants. The Middle East is now hosting one of the largest refugee populations in the world (Palestinians, Syrians and Iraqis), while most of the host countries (except Turkey) are not signatories of the Geneva Convention of 1951. The Middle East is characterized by a strong and ancient human mobility as a result of regional economic disparities and conflicts. Migration appears as a key element in understanding the changes in the socio-political organization of this region. With more than 20 million migrant workers—a quarter of the total migrants in developing countries—the Middle East is one of the main regions of emigration and immigration in the world. In addition, Jordan and Lebanon today, for instance, host a Syrian refugee population that accounts for 10% and 25% of their total population respectively. Traditionally known as emigration countries, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have thus also become settlement and transit spaces for economic and forced migrants. Migrations are triggered by regional and state opportunities and constraints; but they are also fashioned by the migrants’ own coping strategies, aspirations and possible assets in the form of available migratory networks set up on local and familial bases. Contemporary economic migrations and refugee movements can thus only be understood in the light of two correlated contexts: the dynamics of high mobility processes involving cross-border migration, and the existence of well-established transnational networks crystallized around more or less structured Diasporas. The impact of mass migration on Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey will be analysed at different scales. Most available studies have tackled the macro effects of mass migration on host societies (labour market, infrastructures, public services, etc.). While taking into account these large scale effects, this research programme will rather focus on local effects of migration in cities, villages and border areas, and more specifically on spaces with a mixed population. This approach will first allow us to analyse how national policies are locally implemented; second, to examine possible differences in the coping strategies adopted by indigenous and previous migrants communities to new forced migration flows. Three interconnected fields of research will be tackled: 1. local economies and settlement, 2. solidarity networks and 3. local and national political systems.