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.

This thesis tries to display the practice of forced migration experienced in East and Southeast Anatolia after 1980s in Turkey and its consequences through the lived experiences of internally displaced women and children. In the first phase, the historical background of the practice of forced migration, which continues ever since the Ottoman period and the Republican period as well, has been analyzed within the framework of implementations and laws on settlement. In the second phase, in-depth interviews were made with internally displaced women and children living in Diyarbakir and Istanbul and embarking upon the lived experience of internally displaced women and children before, during and after the flight, the issue of social integration with the &lsquo / host&rsquo / population was analyzed comparatively. What was claimed with this comparative analysis was the fact that there would be a significant difference on experiencing the consequences of forced migration and social integration among the internally displaced women and youngsters living in Diyarbakir, which is a metropolis Kurdish citizens are intense, and those living in Istanbul, where Kurdish citizens are relatively low in numbers. Consequently, through the information gathered with this study, the extent that internally displaced persons are socially integrated with the &lsquo / host&rsquo / populations was depicted and that whether the spatial difference had a significant effect on the issue of social integration was analyzed.

This disseration is a case study of reproductive practice among Kurdish rural-urban migrant women in Van, Turkey. Van is one of the eastern provinces where high fertility persists despite the rapid fertility decline in the country. In Van and some other provinces where Kurdish population concentrates, however, fertility levels not only continue to be high but also increased in the period between 1980 and 2000. In order to explore the social dynamics behind the divergent fertility trend, this dissertation conducted interviewing with women in a Kurdish migrant neighbourhood and examined their reproductive experiences from the feminist political economic perspective that pays particular attention to reproduction&rsquo / s embeddededness in patriarchal social relations which are contingent upon political economic contexts. This dissertation argues that Kurdish migrants in the studied neighbourhood experienced, and still experience, considerable socioeconomic insecurities resulted from the neoliberal economic policy since the 1980s and the destructive mass displacement in the 1990s. Migration to the city could offer women empowering opportunities. Yet, while the traditional rural form of patriarchal practices lingered until recently, a new form of patriarchy seeks to restore masculine confidence in the context of insecurities by tightly controlling the woman&rsquo / s movement and considerably hinders her access to public spaces and hence reproductive healthcare. This dissertation proposes that enduring high fertility among the recent Kurdish migrants can be closely related to the form of patriarchy reconfigured in a way to work against the woman&rsquo / s autonomy which is essential for the exercise of reproductive rights.

This study aims to compare Roma community in Edirne and Dom community in Diyarbakir with regard to their integration levels to different majorities (respectively Turks in Edirne and Kurds in Diyarbakir) and belonging to the political body (state), access to citizenship rights (civil, social, political and cultural) and the affect of transnational citizenship on Roma and Dom communities. The main argument of this study asserts that Roma community can have more access to citizenship rights than Dom community. This is related with the fact that Roma community lives with Turks, who are the ethnic majority in Edirne and in Turkey, whereas Dom community lives mostly with Kurds, who are the majority in Diyarbakir but minority in Turkey. Foremost, Roma community has closer connections with state and transnational space than Dom community. The study has found that ethnicity appears as a common barrier for both communities in benefiting from full citizenship. However, it is noted that they experienced different historical, social and economic transformations. Social exclusion is observed at different levels for the two communities. Hence, the study tries to explain why the equality principle of citizenship is ruptured for both communities. While forced migration in 1990s and the gradual loss of musician craft were key factors for the exclusion of Dom community in the labor market,Roma community with affect of agricultural modernization, has repositioned themselves in terms of ethnicity and class formation in last 40-50 years owing mainly to urbanization and modernization. The study has found that Dom community has very limited citizenship rights compared to Roma community. The differences can be obviously seen with regard to impact of poverty and their integration levels to the majority.

This dissertation explores politico-symbolic deployments of death in figurations of national identity and sovereignty in the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Many Kurds have died in their successive rebellions over the last century. However, biological death has not necessarily excluded them from Kurdish culture and politics. Rather, through a symbolic economy of “gift” the Kurds resurrect their dead as martyrs – affective forces that powerfully shape public, political and daily life and promote Kurdish national identity as a sacred communion of the dead and the living. For its own part, the Turkish state has been endeavoring to eradicate this persistent power of the Kurdish dead by obstructing their appropriation and assimilation into the regenerative realms of Kurdish national-symbolic. While these struggles are still in effect, with the shift in Kurdish politics away from the original goal of national independence in 1999, the Kurdish dead emerged as a site of contention also among the Kurds. At least until 2005 the place of the dead in Kurdish politics also shifted with a new politics of memory that the leadership of Kurdish movement initiated to buttress the “peace process”. Based on two-year fieldwork in Diyarbakır, the informal capital of Kurds in Turkey, this study explores the Kurdish political imaginaries and subjectivities that are generated in and through these multiple struggles and contentions over the Kurdish dead, situating death as a central symbolic and semantic field constitutive to national identity and sovereignty. This study contributes to the ethnography of the Kurds, Turkey and the Middle East as well as theories of death, the body, nationalism, sovereignty and political subjectivity. / text

Iraq is one of the world’s major oil suppliers, and over ninety percent of its government revenues come from oil exports. Developing an oil management strategy that politicians from all sects and ethnic groups can agree on is therefore paramount to the future political and economic health of the Iraqi state. Yet the new Iraqi government cannot agree on a comprehensive hydrocarbons framework that would allocate oil ownership rights and share revenues eight years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. One major political battle preventing Iraq from developing its hydrocarbons industry is over the nature of federalism among all of the sects battling for oil wealth in Iraq. This paper focuses primarily on the issue between Kurds and Arabs, because the Kurds have actively promoted oil exploration. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is now a constitutionally-protected region, and has signed 37 production sharing agreement contracts with international oil companies. The federal government in Baghdad deems these contracts illegal. The KRG and Baghdad also cannot agree on the borders for the region, as both sides claim oil-rich Kirkuk. This paper analyses major developments in the KRG and Baghdad oil industries since 2003 and examines possible future scenarios for the country’s oil sector. Drawing on international lessons learned from other oil-rich divided societies such as Nigeria, Sudan, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates, the paper suggest that oil ownership and revenue allocation should be decentralized to reduce secessionist pressure. The paper concludes with recommendations that the government needs to not only take care of obvious issues such as resolving ambiguities in the constitution and passing comprehensive hydrocarbons legislation, but it also needs to address export agreements and institute measures to ensure transparency. The KRG needs to develop its own oil industry, complete with access to export pipelines, and should be allowed to keep a higher percentage of KRG oil revenue over its current 17%. Iraq needs international mediation to resolve issues on Kirkuk and should also make innovative changes to the structure of its national oil company. These changes will facilitate the proper investing of oil wealth for future generations of Iraqis. / text

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In recent years, the attention is being increasingly drawn to the role of the European Union on the development of minority rights in the candidate countries. The adoption of the Copenhagen political criteria, which also require "respect for and protection of minorities," as preconditions that applicants must have met before they could join the Union has inevitably led to some policy changes to the minorities in Eastern Europe. This policy shift is particularly directed at minority language rights, because one of the most important aspects of the protection of minorities is the recognition of their linguistic identity. The aim of this study is to explore to what extent this development has influenced the situation of language rights of the Kurds in Turkey. In order to answer this question, it first examines the relationship between the Copenhagen criteria and international and European standards protecting minority language rights. Secondly, considering those standards, it assesses the achievements and failures of the recent legislative amendments which are directed to bring the language rights of the Kurds within the line of the Copenhagen criteria. The case of Turkey reveals the vast potential of the European enlargement process on the development of minority language rights, but also its limits in situations where there is a lack of political will to respect and protect diversity.

Magistro baigiamajame darbe išanalizuota kurdų tautinė mažuma Turkijos Respublikoje 2003–2012 m. Pirmoje darbo dalyje apibrėžiama tautinių mažumų samprata Turkijos Respublikoje. Antroje dalyje ištirtos kurdų tautinės mažumos politinių ir kultūrinių teisių išplėtimas 2003–2012 m. bei išanalizuota ES ir AKP įtaka vykdomoms reformoms. Trečioje darbo dalyje palyginta kurdų tautinės mažumos padėtis istoriniu ir politiniu aspektais Turkijos ir Irako Respublikose. / This Master‘s thesis analyzes the situation of the Kurdish minority in the Republic of Turkey during the period of 2003–2012. The first part of the thesis defines the concept of national minorities in the Republic of Turkey. The second part of the thesis examines the improvement of political and cultural rights of the Kurdish minority during the period of 2003–2012, also defines the influence of EU and AKP on the reforms. In the third part of the thesis the Kurdish national minority in Turkey and Iraq is compared in the historical and political context.

The Kurds are the largest stateless ethnic group in the world, numbering around 30 million globally, and after more than a century of fighting for self-determination the tangible success is minimal. Turkey and Iraq both have significant Kurdish populations that are growing in size respective to the Turkish and Arab communities, and yet the only semi-autonomous territory the Kurds have is the Iraqi province of Kurdistan. With continued instability in the Middle East, and an increasingly powerful, numerous, and ideological Kurdish community present, the recipe for conflict is present. This thesis analyzes the Kurdish claim for self-determination, and the different levels of success the groups in Turkey and Iraq have faced, through secondary literature. A multi-level approach reveals how complex the Kurdish Question really is, and what other minority groups and national governments can learn from the Kurds' experience.