Despite the vast research on the protracted conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state, recent battles in the South-East of Turkey have increased the anti-Kurdish attitudes and discourses in Turkish society. I argue that Kurdish marginalized individuals conflict understandings are silenced in the Turkish social and political landscape.This study examines how Kurdish social identities narrate their conflict understanding between Kurds and Turks. The aim is to get a deeper understanding of the Kurdish participant’s feelings, attitudes, experiences and perspectives in an intergroup environment. This study contributes to the knowledge of intergroup relations and tensions in the Turkish social setting and sheds light into out-group prejudice and discrimination in Turkey. The study uses a theoretical framework linking peace and conflict theories such as prejudice, discrimination, in-group and out-group, enemy images, cultural- structural and direct violence, intergroup contact theory and reconciliation. The dataset consists of sixteen semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted in three different cities in Turkey; Ankara, Diyarbakir and Istanbul. The interview material was analyzed through a thematic analysis with a qualitative approach. The research found that the identifying characteristics of being a Kurd in today’s Turkey are to fight against injustice, oppression, assimilation and shared feelings of discrimination. Keywords: Kurdish perspectives, thematic analysis, Oral History, out-group, discrimination, enemy images, cultural violenceWords: 13944

This dissertation concerns the disabled veterans of the Turkish army who fought against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerillas as conscripted soldiers. While being valorized as sacrificial heroes, “ghazis,” in the realm of nationalist politics, these disabled veterans also face socio-economic marginalization and demasculinization anxieties in Turkey, where discrimination against the disabled is rampant. In such a context, disabled veterans emerged as important ultranationalist actors in the 2000s, championing a conservative agenda around the issues of state sovereignty, democratization, and Turkey’s pending European Union (EU) membership. In this dissertation, I locate the disabled veteran body at the intersection of medical and welfare institutions, nationalist discourses, and cultural formations of gendered normativity to trace the embodied socio-cultural and political processes that constitute disabled veterans as ultranationalist political subjects. I approach the politicization of disabled veterans through the analytical lens of the body in order to understand how veterans’ gendered and classed experiences of warfare, injury, and disability are hardened into an ultranationalist political identity. Exploring the tensions between the nationalist construction of the disabled veteran body and veterans’ embodied experiences as lower-class disabled men, I show how the dialectic between political rites of consecration and everyday rites of desecration translates disability into a political force. By unraveling the ways in which disability caused by violence generates new forms of masculinity, embodiment, and political identity, I illustrate how the disabled veterans’ suffering is brokered into militarization and ultranationalist protest in contemporary Turkey. / text

The aim of this paper is to investigate the link between internal and external conflict of states in the field of International Relations. More specifically, it is a critique of the Diversionary War theory, which argues that political leaders can instigate foreign conflict to divert the attention from domestic issues in order to secure their political positions. This paper will test an alternative approach to the Diversionary War theory called the Diversionary Peace theory, which inverts the logic of the original theory. It argues that leaders facing domestic strife have incentives to cooperate with other states in order to deal with the internal problems in a more cost effective way. Using process tracing methodology, the Diversionary Peace theory is applied to Turkey from 1984-1999, to understand how the Kurdish issue as a source of domestic conflict in Turkey affected the Turkish-Syrian relations. The Diversionary Peace Theory would assume that as the Kurdish conflict escalates at the domestic level, Turkey would be inclined to give concessions to Syria to deescalate conflict at the international level. This paper proves otherwise: as the domestic conflict escalates, relations actually deteriorate and cooperation becomes less likely. Therefore, it is both a critique of the Diversionary War theory and the Diversionary Peace theory. The main interpretation of the findings is that the theory is not applicable to those cases where the boundaries between domestic and international realms are too porous as in the case of the Kurdish politics. When the domestic conflict and international dispute is interlinked, as in this case, I argue that cooperation might not be possible. Future reseachers in the area are advised to pay attention to whether the domestic factor and the international factor are interlinked, how the level of domestic conflict affects foreign relations and the impact of domestic audience costs.

The objective of this study is to describe and analyze the management of communal conflict in the Middle East, focusing on the Kurds. To this end, an effort is made to examine (1) the means that have been used to manage the Kurdish conflict by Middle Eastern countries; (2) the degree of success or failure of applied measures and (3) possible explanations for the first two questions.

L’objet de cette recherche est d’examiner deux formes de violence d’Etat : la disparition forcée et la migration forcée, dans le contexte du conflit Kurde. Cette étude se fonde sur un travail de terrain conduit dans deux villes, représentatives du contexte des disparitions forcées, de la migration forcée et des projets de transformation urbaine, à savoir à İstanbul et à Şırnak. Ces formes de violence d’Etat sont examinées dans le contexte politico-historique des années 1990 en se centrant sur l’appareil d’Etat, l’espace juridique, la vie quotidienne et la mémoire. En outre, l’une des conséquences les plus importantes de la migration forcée, à savoir les projets de transformations urbaines, sont également étudiées afin d’approfondir l’analyse concernant les migrants Kurdes dans le milieu urbaine. La thèse principale de cette recherche est la suivante: les formes de violence d’Etat mise en œuvre pendant les années 1990 dans les marges spatiales et politiques de la Turquie offrent des informations cruciales permettant de procéder à une analyse approfondie de l’appareil d’Etat, de l’espace juridique et du débat sur la mémoire du centre-même de la Turquie. L’analyse de ces formes de violence d’Etat révèle également leurs dimensions holistiques, structurées et spatialisées qui façonnent les subjectivités et les performances de différentes parties prenantes, y compris des parents proches des disparus, des déplacés et des résidents des zones urbaines informelles. Les relations complexes, transformatrices et à multiples facettes entre la région kurde et le centre de la Turquie met en lumières l’interconnectivitée de ces entités géographiques, politiques et historiques qui sont beaucoup plus liées qu’elles n’y paraissent. / This study aims to examine two forms of state violence, namely, enforced disappearance and forced migration, in the context of Turkey’s Kurdish conflict. The analysis will be mainly based on a field research on two cities representative in the context of the enforced disappearance, forced migration and urban transformation projects, İstanbul and Şırnak. These forms of violence are investigated in the broader historico-political momentum of the 1990s focusing on state apparatus, juridical field, quotidian life and memory. Moreover, one of the crucial effects of the forced migration on the urgan space, urban transformation projects will also be evaluated for a deepened analysis of Kurdish migrants in the urban milieu. The main argument of the dissertation is the forms of state violence implemented at the spatial and political margin of Turkey during the 1990s offer crucial insights for a deepened analysis of the state apparatus, juridical field and memory debate of the very center of Turkey. An analysis of these forms of state violence also reveals their holistic, structured and spatialized dimensions that shaped subjectivities and performances of different stakeholders, including relatives of the forcibly disappeared, internally displaced persons and inhabitants of the informal urban areas. Complicated, transformatory and multi-faceted relations between the Kurdish region and the center of Turkey highlight the interconnectedness of these geographical, political and histroical entities that are far related than it appears.

Sammanfattning Den väpnade konflikten mellan den kurdiska PKK-gerillan och den turkiska staten har pågått med varierande intensitet sedan början av 1980-talet och orsakat tiotusentals dödsskjutningar, och fördrivit ett stort antal civila i sydöstra Turkiet. De sociala och politiska spänningarna, som till exempel gäller ekonomisk rättvisa och erkännande av den kurdiska etniska och kulturella identiteten, har oroat den turkiska staten sedan den bildades efter det Ottomanska rikets kollaps. Även om ett ökande antal studier har beskrivit och analyserat dessa spänningar visar en översyn av tidigare litteratur att endast några av de tidiga studier fokuserade på hur kvinnor har upplevt dessa spänningar. Intresset för ämnet väcktes hos mig på grund av min turkiska bakgrund. Jag är född och uppväxt i ett land där turkar är i hög grad diskriminerade av landets majoritet. Jag känner väl känslan av diskriminering och isolering inte bara som en turk utan även som en kvinna. Därför bestämde jag, som är ursprungligen turk, att skriva om den turkisk-kurdiska konflikten ur ett genusperspektiv. Fokus ligger på kurdiska kvinnors känslor och erfarenheter i den turkisk-kurdiska konflikten som pågått länge i Turkiet. Studien syftar till att analysera hur kurdiska kvinnor uppfattar och upplever de sociala, ekonomiska och politiska spänningarna i skuggan av det rasande inbördeskriget mellan PKK och den turkiska staten. Studien fokuserar först på att identifiera källor till konfliktrelaterad stress som är specifika för kvinnor och analyserar sedan de strategier som kurdiska kvinnor använder för att hantera denna stress. Det empiriska materialet består av fokusgruppintervjuer som genomfördes våren 2017 i Istanbul, Ankara och Diyarbakir med totalt 35 kvinnor. Studiens resultat visar att kurdiska kvinnor möter daglig diskriminering och förtryck som riktar sig direkt mot dem, och samtidigt upplever de alla dessa negativa fenomen genom deras familjemedlemmar. De är tvungna att hålla tyst om sina känslor, rädslor, upplevelser, behov och sorg för att kunna skydda sin familjs liv. / Summary The armed conflict between the Kurdish PKK guerilla and the Turkish state has continued with varying intensity since the early 1980s, causing tens of thousands of casualties and displacing large numbers of civilians in South Eastern Turkey. However, the social and political tensions, relating to, for example, economic justice and recognition of the Kurdish ethnic and cultural identity have troubled the Turkish state since its creation after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Although an increasing number of studies that has been written describing and analyzing these tensions, a review of the early literature shows that few of the early works focused on how women have experienced them. The interest in the subject was created by my Turkish background. I was born and raised in a country where Turks are highly discriminated against by most of the country’s majority. I feel the sense of discrimination and isolation, and therefore I decided to write about the TurkishKurdish conflict from gender perspective. The focus is on the feelings and experiences of Kurdish women in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict that has been continuing in Turkey for a long time. This study seeks to analyze how Kurdish women perceive and experience the social, economic, and political tensions in the shadow of the raging civil war between the PKK and the Turkish state. It first focuses on identifying sources of conflict related stress that are specific to women, and then analyzes the strategies that Kurdish women use to deal with this stress as women. The empirical material consists of focus groups interviews conducted in the spring of 2017 in Istanbul, Ankara, and Diyarbakir with a total of 35 women. The study's findings show that Kurdish women face daily discrimination and oppression directed directly against them, while at the same time experiencing all these negative phenomena through their family members as well. They must keep silent about their feelings, fears, experiences, needs and sorrows to keep their family alive.