Born in Manchester, Professor Christine Allison grew up in the North West of England, but her passion for the Kurdish language took her to the heart of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
“It was a very exciting but humbling experience,” said Professor Christine Allison, when asked to describe what it was like carrying out fieldwork in
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1992.
“Everyone was terrified Saddam’s army would come over the hill at any moment. Of course if that happened I could always get out, but my friends there couldn’t.”
As she recounts: “It was relatively isolated from other countries. There weren’t Internet connections and telephones. At that time, it was hard to buy things not produced locally, food supplies were limited, and many, probably most, people were very poor.
Yet Professor Allison’s experience was that ordinary people living under the shadow of Saddam’s regime were friendly and kindhearted. “Despite their problems, they were always welcoming and generous, and tried to help me in my research wherever possible,” she said.
The academic journey that led Professor Allison from the North West to Iraq started at Oxford. After a BA degree in Classics and French at Magdalen College, Oxford, Professor Allison decided to study Kurdish at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Her PhD thesis focused on oral traditions amongst the Yezidis of Iraq. This was followed by a British Academy postdoctoral fellowship at SOAS (1997-2001).
She then lectured in Kurmanji Kurdish at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris, before taking up the post of Ibrahim Ahmed Chair of Kurdish Studies at Exeter, funded by a gift from the Ibrahim Ahmed Foundation. Exeter’s new Centre of Kurdish Studies (CKS) is the first of its kind to be established outside of Kurdistan.
Exeter is the only British university to teach Sorani, and soon, Kurmanji Kurdish as part of its undergraduate programmes. The University also offers a new MA in Kurdish Studies, and there are plans to commission a new peer-reviewed academic journal.
Professor Allison says Exeter’s international reputation in Kurdish Studies was one of the main factors that brought her to the University. Asked why Kurdish Studies is so important, she highlights that the Kurds are one of the largest group in the Middle East. “There are well over 20 million Kurds,” she explained, “and they have their own language and culture, which differ in many ways from those of their neighbours.
“Moreover, they inhabit a strategic area once referred to as ‘the most valuable piece of real estate in the Middle East, bar Israel’. This area comprises not only important oil resources, but also the headwaters of the Tigris and the Euphrates.”
As well as carrying out research in Iraq, the academic has worked with Kurds in Germany and most recently in Armenia. Although she is an active researcher, Professor Allison also has a passion for teaching Kurmanji Kurdish to her students. She added: “I love teaching and I always find that I learn a lot from my students as well.”