Ethnic and religious identities in northern Iraq : the case of Erbil

Download
index.pdf
2007
Kaplan, Muharrem
Show full item record
33
views
23
downloads
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 tribal relations, and/or the role of the culture by specifically focusing on the language as way of identification. In this study, the results of the field research conducted in Erbil are being compared to the arguments in the existing literature that explain the Kurdish identity in relation to the religion and the language. The study aims to discuss whether there is a shift from the religion, which had a significant role in history regarding the Kurdish identification, to the language, as a marker of modern Kurdish identity formation in Erbil. The research that conducted for this thesis has indicated that while the role of religion lost its historical role, the Kurdish language became the indicator of the identity of the Kurds in Erbil. In addition, this study will examine, in historical context, how the Kurdish language became the core issue of the Kurdish identity. The findings of the field research have been analyzed by using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) software program.
Kurds
http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12609215/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/17459
Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

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...
Turkish modernity and Kurdish ethno-nationalism
Ökem, Mekin Mustafa Kemal; Ayata, Ayşe; Department of Political Science and Public Administration (2006)
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 modern...
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...
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...
Waiting for the peace: a comparative study of people who lost their family members in the conflict in the souteast and east of Turkey
Şentürk, Burcu; Ertürk, Yakın; Department of Sociology (2009)
This thesis mainly aims to understand the dynamics behind the way in which people who lost family members in the conflict in the Southeastern and Eastern parts of Turkey between the years 1993 and 2006 are positioned as oppositional to each others. It inquires whether their common grief of loosing someone in the family might enable them to act collectively and to ask for peace in Turkey. How are they represented as oppositional groups despite their common grief? Why do they consider each other as belonging ...
Citation Formats
M. Kaplan, “Ethnic and religious identities in northern Iraq : the case of Erbil ,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2007.
METU IIS - Integrated Information Service open@metu.edu.tr