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We would like to call participation for a workshop on the issue of Alevi cemevi in Turkey. The meeting will take place in April 2015 in Ankara and is supported by TEPAV (Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey).As it is well known, the core of “Alevi problem” centres around the question of the official recognition of Alevi identity with its social, cultural, and particularly religious dimensions.  By the 1990s, when we saw the culmination of so called “Alevi Revival”, cemevi substituted Alevi associations and endowments as the carrier and conspicuous symbol of Alevi identity in urban milieu. Likewise, the issue of cemevi became the vector of the whole Alevi question. The solid demand of Alevi community from the government is to provide an official recognition and legal status to cemevi as “place of worship”. However, the governments fail to meet this demand for various reasons.Despite its centrality in the whole Alevi question, the cemevi still remains mostly unknown to scholars and the public.Background: Recognition and Redefinition. During the 1990s, the issue of cemevi had been debated mainly on two principal trajectories: politicization of Alevi identity and complying religious and social needs of urban Alevi community. Despite the fact that none of their demands were met, Alevis attained more and more socio-political visibility in the course of the 1990s. This period also witnessed the rise of religious sensitivity within the Alevi movementOfficial blindness to Alevi demands began to change when the law of associations has been modified in accordance to the EU harmonization process in 2004. Establishing an association having explicit references to Alevism in its title or statute became legally possible only after this reformation. Changes in the official stance towards Alevism continue in the following year and should be considered within the general framework of Democratic Initiative Process started in the second half of the decade. A very critical phase of this “opening” process achieved when the government announced that a series of dialogue meetings will be organized to discuss the demands raised by Alevis. In a half year period from June 2009 to January 2010, seven key-thematic meetings organized with the participation of various parties including Alevi political and spiritual representatives, journalists, and academicians as well as Sunni theologians.The status of cemevi was one of the controversial issues in these meetings. The government representatives accepted that Alevis have suffered from certain inequalities of having access to public resources. However, they were reluctant to recognize cemevis as the place of worship on the claim that, in Islam, only mosques can be accepted as such and any other attempt would be perceived as a “risk of partition in Islam” by Sunnis (Final Report, 2010: 172). On the other hand, they also declared that the government is ready to recognize cemevis as cultural centres for Alevis and to formalize access to public sources on this basis. The process of Alevi Initiative was concluded with the publication of a final report and without resulting in any reformation.The issue of cemevis has gained new political currency when the process of Alevi initiative was taken out of the closet in the wake of the massive anti-government demonstrations occurred during the June 2013. Nowadays the government hints to resume the “Alevi opening”, which was unexpectedly frozen at the end of the Democratic Initiative Process.Rationale and relevanceThis debate on the demand for official recognition of cemevis should be seen within the broader framework of the Democratic Initiative Process presented by the government as the roadmap of more democratic and pluralist Turkey. On the other hand, the debates inevitably involve with a latent yet very sharp question about the location of Alevism within Islam. Important too is the fact that some critical questions are overshadowed by the facile opposition between “tolerance” and “assimilation” stances emerged amongst relevant parties of the issue.Within this general framework, we aim to discuss the following topics:Why did the cemevi become the backbone of Alevi existence in urban milieu?-What are the social and religious functions of cemevi?-The transformation of cem and cemevi from rural to urban context-Transformation of cem and cemevi in transnational contexts-The history of cem and cemevi-Sunni apprehension of worship and the place of worship in Islam-The concept of worship and worship place in Sufi traditions-The concept of worship and worship place in non-Sunni traditions (Isma’ili, Nusayri, Yaresan or Ahl-i Hak, Bahai)-The legal aspects of the issue in regard to Turkish legal system-The legal aspects of the issue in regard to European legal system and the European Court of Human Rights-Case studies on specific cemevis-Directorate of Religious Affairs: its history, functionality in the Turkish state structure, and key role in the solution of the problem-Cemevi within the perspective of laicism and religious freedom in Turkey.-In which context, cemevis appeared as a form of institutionalized representation of urbanized Alevism in public sphere?-For which reasons and to have access to which services Alevis attend cemevis?-What are spatial forms of Alevism and their historical trajectories?&#160;The first specific objective of the workshopis to provide an interdisciplinary interchange of scholars on anthropological, historical, juristic, political and social aspects of cemevi in Turkey. We believe that the workshop will contribute to the development of new theoretical as well as methodological frameworks to approach contemporary questions of Alevism. In the meantime, since the topic is also of great relevance to policy formation, we hope that the outcomes of such an intensive scholarly discussion will contribute to the solution of the problem. In addition to intellectual exchange between participants, a solid outcome of the meeting is anticipated to be an interdisciplinary publication to be published as a book or special issue of a related journal in English, and then, as a book in Turkish. Finally, the workshop aims to establish long-term partnership and interaction platform among scholars studying on Alevism.Papers and discussions may be both in English and Turkish. No translation will be provided.Organization of Workshop:We are planning to organize the workshop as a highly interactive and exclusive academic two-day meeting, which is expected to bring some 15 scholars from different disciplinary formations together. Each presenter will have 25 minutes to present his/her paper and 25 minutes for discussion. Sessions will not be open to the public. However, we will have selected audience who has scholarly works on and interest in the issue but does not present paper. This second group can join the discussions on papers. The accommodation and travel expenses of paper presenters will be compensated.Tentative ScheduleWe are planning to finalize the list of participants by December 1st, 2014. The workshop will be held in April 2015 (the exact date will be announced by December 1st) in Ankara. However, we are expecting to receive all papers by the end of March 15th, 2015 so that we can circulate them among participants.Abstracts no more than 400 words, alongside with a current CV, should be submitted by November 15th, 2014, to Riza Yildirim (TOBB University of Economics and Technology, rzyldrm@gmail.com).