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.

This thesis explores the literacy practices in literacy history, in everyday life and in Swedish tuition for immigrants (sfi) of five Kurdish adults. The study analyses connections and dividing lines between literacy practices of the sociotextual domains of everyday life and literacy practices of the sociotextual domain of sfi. It also explores the interaction between literacy history and present literacy practices. Further, there is a focus on the connections between identification, learning and literacy practices. The methodological approach is inspired by ethnography, employing individual semi-structured interviews and classroom observation. Video documentation, audio recordings and field notes are used for documentation. Theoretically the study is influenced by the research field New Literacy Studies where literacies are conceived of assets of socially and culturally grounded practices. The interviews are analysed from two perspectives: focusing on content and on linguistic discursive practices. In the analysis of interviews and observations, a number of interacting aspects of literacy events and literacy practices are also researched, such as purpose, time, place, participants, verbal language and artefacts. A lack of connection between the participants’ notions of who they are and the identities offered to them in sfi impairs the conditions of their active participation in the literacy practices, and consequently also impairs their learning. Identities connected to literacy history are of importance in this process. To exemplify this, the professional career they had in Kurdistan is still of central importance for two of the participants of the study. This complicates their identification as sfi-students and their engaging in the literacy practices of the sfi-education. If sfi teachers know which identities from everyday life are important to their sfi students and try to find connections between the sfi teaching and these identities, the chances improve of the students accepting the identities which they are offered in the literacy events. Then it will also be more probable that the students’ participation in the literacy events in sfi will lead to deep learning. In the sfi classrooms, the participants take part in literacy events of everyday life. There are three types of overlap between the literacy practices of sfi and of everyday life. (1) Literacy events from other sociotextual domains take place in the sfi-classrooms, but without recontextualization into sfi. (2) Literacy events based in sociotextual domains of everyday life are recontextualized into sfi. (3) Literacy events belong to more than one sociotextual domain. In spite of these three types of overlap there are complications when it comes to students starting out from literacy practices of everyday life when they take part in the literacy practices of sfi. It is not possible to transmit literacy practices in their totality, from one sociotextual domain to another. The literacy practices are situated in a specific sociotextual domain and will undergo a transformation as they are based in a different sociotextual domain. On the other hand, it is possible for sfi students to make use of everyday micro practices (e.g. cooperation and non-linear reading) when they take part in the literacy practices of sfi.

The purpose of this thesis is to study what has been the biggest obstacle in the development towards autonomy for Kurds in Turkey and to conduct a study based on a theory on territorial autonomy made by Maria Ackrén, entitled "Conditions for Different Autonomy Regimes in the World". The research design is a qualitative case study where Ackrén's theory serves as a framework for the results. Ackrén present eight factors which could explain the establishment and degree of autonomy; degree of democracy, historical strategic importance, geographical distance, possession of natural resources, existence of regional movement or separatist groups, ethnic distinctiveness, size and economic viability. The result and analysis indicate that the main obstacles to Kurdish autonomy are indeed the factors that Ackrén in her study points out as the two necessary factors for territorial autonomy to occur. Territorial autonomies have the greatest chance of emerging in democratic and equal societies where there are favourable economic conditions with high GDP/capita. While one can argue that Turkey's political system has democratic flaws, furthermore, the GDP/capita in Turkish Kurdistan is much lower compared to the national average. This means that the conditions are disadvantageous for the emergence of Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.