A Comparative Overview of African Studies in Turkey and Greece

Abstract

For many years, African issues had a low priority in both political and academic circles in Greece and Turkey. However, as far as Turkey is concerned, scientific interest in African issues has gone hand in hand with growing political interest in the continent, with African studies focusing primarily on Turkish-African relations. Regarding the Greek reality, while the Greeks have had an active diaspora in countries of Sub-Saharan Africa for many decades, the state has never formulated any coordinated political proposal to strengthen the country’s relationship with the continent. This lack of central policy leaves the Greek immigrants there absolutely alone to make their mark in their host societies. Respectively, the Greek academic community only in recent years has been dealing with Africa, even though to a limited extent, focusing mainly on issues concerning the Greek diaspora there. Given that in recent decades Greece has become a host country for immigrants and among them, immigrants or even refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa, so, due to this fact the scientific interest in Africa has increased. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to compare the two case studies regarding the status quo of African Studies across them.