Turkish modernity and Kurdish ethno-nationalism

Download
index.pdf
2006
Ökem, Mekin Mustafa Kemal
Show full item record
331
views
153
downloads
This dissertation analyzes the context and discourse the Kurdish ethno-nationalism have emerged in modern Turkey. In a critical survey of a selected Kurdish nationalist theories, it tries to analyze the historical and contextual trajectory the nationalist discourse have assumed vis-à-vis Turkish modernity. A particular emphasis is given on how and on what basis Kurdish nationalism has questioned the formation and the sources of the legitimacy of the Turkish state and its role in the making of Turkish modernity. Kurdish nationalism, in doing so, defined and instrumentally utilized ethnicity, along with other aspects of cohesion such as Islam, socialism and traditional tribal solidarity since the 1920s. This study argues that modern Kurdish nationalist movement emerged by divorcing itself from the Turkish left in the 1960s. It proliferated in the 1970s and spiraled down to separatist violence in the 1980s. Violence has dominated and synchronized Kurdish nationalist discourse in the 1990s. It sought for international recognition and independent sovereignty by targeting the legitimacy of the Turkish state. The Kurdish nationalist movement moved along, in discourse and practice, around the issues related to the Turkish state, which has evolved with the changing and diversified context of international rights.
Turkey, Kurds, Kurds, Turkey
http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12607241/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/16505
Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

Turkey’s Kurdish conflict through the lenses of conflict resolution
Çağlayan, Muttalip; Dağı, İhsan Duran; Department of International Relations (2013)
This thesis aims to analyze Turkey’s Kurdish conflict in historical and current context by using conflict resolution approaches/tools. The goal is first to investigate how conflict resolution approaches may become helpful in understanding and explaining root causes of the Kurdish conflict, and then to search for which conflict resolution tools may be relevant in ending armed struggle between Turkish state and the PKK. We now experience a negative peace phase in this conflict because there is a mutual ceasef...
Turkey‟s relations with Syria in the context of the Kurdish issue: 1980-2014 /
Öztürk, Abdullah; Bölükbaşıoğlu, Süha; Department of International Relations (2014)
This study analyzes Turkey's relations with Syria in the context of the Kurdish issue concentrating on the period between 1980 and 2014. The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that one of the main determinant factors behind Turkey's foreign policy towards Syria was the Kurdish issue in the covered period. In this regard, the study will seek to answer the questions such as how the PKK had an impact on Turkey's relations with Syria in the 1980s and 1990s. Then, the thesis will also seek to show that Syria's...
Tracing Turkey’s security discourses and practices vis-à-vis the Kurdish issue
Balaban, Gökçe; Yurdusev, Ahmet Nuri; Department of International Relations (2016)
This study analyzes Turkish state’s security discourses and practices vis-à-vis the Kurdish issue from the perspectives of traditional and critical (emancipatory) security studies. The analysis is undertaken in two periods: the past and the present. Accordingly, the thesis argues that, in the Kurdish issue, Turkish state’s discourses and practices in the past could best be understood by traditional understanding of security. This means that, in state security discourses and practices the state was constitut...
Ethnic and religious identities in northern Iraq : the case of Erbil
Kaplan, Muharrem; Dağı, İhsan Duran; Department of Middle East Studies (2007)
The purpose of this study is to discuss the role of the religion and language, Islam Kurdish, in the process of Kurdish identity formation in Northern Iraq and to find out the most imperative factor/s in the existing identification of Kurdish identity by relying on the field research conducted in Erbil. The current discussions in the literature generally either emphasized the role of religion by focusing on the tariqat relations, and/or the role of feudal structure of the Kurdish society by focusing on the ...
Turkish nationalism and the Kurdish question
Yegen, Mesut (2007-01-01)
This article addresses the ways in which Turkish nationalism has perceived the Kurdish question. It is shown that both Turkish nationalism and the Kurdish question have passed through some paradigmatic moments in the twentieth century. This, I argue, has shaped the way that the Kurdish question has been perceived by Turkish nationalism. While the Kurdish question had been seen by Turkish nationalism mostly in terms of a fatal rivalry between the backward, pre-modern and tribal past and the prosperous presen...
Citation Formats
M. M. K. Ökem, “Turkish modernity and Kurdish ethno-nationalism,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2006.
METU IIS - Integrated Information Service open@metu.edu.tr