Expat Harem has a new global niche.
The Expat Harem — a concept I coined in 2004 with Jennifer Eaton Gokmen and brought to life in 2005 and 2006 in the foreign women in Turkey anthology Tales from the Expat Harem – has always been about a modern and virtual community of cultural peers.
windows into the expat harem by Leslie Dann
Now the (softly) relaunched ExpatHarem.com is expat+HAREM, the global niche and aims to bring its community to life online as a neoculture hub for global citizens and identity adventurers as well as travelers and culturati, fans of the anthology, and Turkophiles.
Re-imagining the role Expat Harem plays in the cultural conversation, this new venture acknowledges the permanent liminality of today’s multicultural, global existence. Like the nation of Turkey itself — its struggles are both personal and universal, self-perception East yet also West, looking toward Europe or Asia, ancient empire persisting under the surface of new republic. In some small or large way, all of us are coming or going, crossing threshold after threshold but never arriving.
I’m looking forward to engaging with you about the crossroads and dichotomies of our hybrid lives….
- modern existences in historic places
- deep-rooted traditions translated in mobile times
- limiting stereotypes revisited for wider meaning
- the expat mindset as it evolves from nationalism to globalism
COLLABORATION WELCOME: Guest contributors are invited to make this global niche their own. Peruse the (very basic) guidelines.
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Anastasia M. Ashman
2010 Capital of Culture monthly feature of best Istanbul links
Very excited to see this coming together and I hope it turns out as you envision it.
Thanks Tara, appreciate it. It’s been fun getting started on the site and sharing some initial thoughts and images that have been percolating for months or years — like never-before-seen photos from Southeast Asia and ideas about crossroads from my “Berkeley to Byzantium” travel memoir (on the backburner) — as well as talking to expats, travelers and global souls about guest posting at this multi-author blog.
expat+HAREM, the global niche synthesizes numerous strands of my life’s work, experience and interests and I’m itching to share the vision and platform with the wider world….
Thanks for posting one of our many cover design iterations of your beloved ‘Expat Harem’ book. A nice metaphor for the many iterations and interpretations of ‘Expat Harems’ I hope to read online in this new blog!
Absolutely, Leslie…this was an early view and still is so fresh with its series of walls and windows, doorways and shades of grey. Restrictions, perspectives, options/opportunities, and the subtle shades of meaning we must make sense of.
Hope to see your own (design?) contributions one day soon at expat+HAREM about your bi-cultural Spanish-American life!