Narrating Genealogies of Place in the Balkans: The Case of Bağ-lar Periodical

This study conceptualizes place as a dynamic configuration of historical experiences, familial ties, social relationships, memory, and belonging, developing this perspective through the concept of genealogies of place. The concept describes how places acquire meaning through familial, historical, social, and narrative connections that extend beyond biological lines of descent. The study draws on texts published in the first 14 issues of Bağ-lar, a magazine focusing on the cultural and historical experiences of Balkan Turkish communities. Using qualitative document analysis, it examines how a place is understood and represented in relation to the past, ancestry and origins, memory, migration, shifting borders, and belonging. The findings reveal that family histories, homes, and everyday life position place as a repository of intergenerational memory, while cities and settlements emerge as spatial archives of collective memory and historical experience. Place names and material traces preserve connections between past and present, whereas sites associated with war, destruction, death, and commemoration serve as focal points of traumatic memory. Changing political and social conditions also reshape feelings of belonging and familiarity within the same physical locations, giving rise to experiences of alienation in place. These findings demonstrate how places continue to acquire new meanings through familial, collective, and intergenerational narratives despite shifts in political and social boundaries. The study contributes to scholarship on Balkan Turkish communities by illuminating the role of place as a dynamic setting in which the past, memory, identity, and belonging are continually reconstructed.