Under the Same Sky

An ethnographic study of the everyday lives of religious minorities near Turkeys border with Syria How do people coexist in a world shaped by longstanding differences, political instability, and recurrent displacement? In Under the Same Sky, Seil Data addresses this question by exploring the everyday politics of religious difference among minority communities in Turkeys southern borderlands. In a region often portrayed through the lens of conflict and division, this ethnography brings to life the subtle, often overlooked negotiations occurring in social spaces such as bustling city bazaars, shared worship sites, interfaith unions, home gatherings, and a multireligious choir. Set against the backdrop of major political upheavals in Turkey and Syria before the 2023 earthquakes devastated the region, the book demonstrates how Arab Alawis, Christians, and Jews, alongside their Sunni Muslim neighbors, use familiar social idiomskinship, hospitality, love, and companionshipto reproduce religious differences. Data argues that religious difference is more than an identity marker for these communities, as it is often treated in studies focused on statecraft or political movements. It is a dynamic aspect of social relations which is constantly redefined by race, class, citizenship, and gender, and unsettled by overlapping practices and multireligious belonging. Under the Same Sky focuses on religious difference as lived and reworked in daily encounterswithin the larger context of a majoritarian Turkish Sunni stateinviting readers to reconsider secularism, religious plurality, and the nature of political life.