[pt] Esta dissertação tem como objetivo analisar as ideias de gênero (mais especificamente, de feminilidade), de liberdade e de libertação feminina mobilizadas em diferentes discursos sobre as YPJ (Unidades de Defesa das Mulheres). As YPJ são uma milícia armada curda, composta de mulheres, que atua em Rojava (norte da Síria), autoproclamada território independente curdo desde 2012. Rojava é reconhecidamente organizada sob inspiração dos preceitos do Confederalismo Democrático (sistema político idealizado por Abdullah Öcalan), que preza por governos horizontais descentralizados e pela emancipação feminina como forma de libertação popular. As YPJ têm despertado cada vez mais interesse ao redor do mundo (especialmente em países do Ocidente), tanto porque são mulheres que lutam, quanto pelo projeto de emancipação anunciado por Rojava e pela luta armada contra o Estado Islâmico conduzida por elas. Nesse sentido, essas mulheres militares são abordadas em diferentes narrativas, de diferentes maneiras, por atores tão diversos quanto jornais de grande circulação internacional, mídias cristãs, de bem-estar feminino, publicações anarquistas, alguns ativistas curdos, acadêmicos de esquerda, dentre outros. Tentaremos navegar pelas representações dessas mesmas mulheres, em diferentes contextos políticos, em busca de continuidades e rupturas nos significados de feminilidade, libertação e na relação desta com as mulheres. Com isso, nossa tentativa é de compreender os processos que permitem formas diversas de apropriação dos mesmos elementos (feminilidade e liberdade das mulheres) em relação a diferentes ideais políticos. / [en] Our goal in this dissertation is to analyze the ideas of gender (more specifically, of femininity), freedom, and feminine liberation mobilized in different discourses about the YPJ (Women Defense Units). The YPJ are a Kurdish militia, composed by women only, which acts in Rojava (northern Syria), a self-proclaimed Kurdish independent territory since 2012. Rojava s organization is inspired by the precepts of Democratic Confederalism, a political system idealized by Abdullah Ocalan, which advances decentralized governments and women s emancipation as the only way to popular liberation. In the last few years, the YPJ have been gaining more and more attention internationally (especially in western countries), in academic mediums, political collectives, and media vehicles. In that sense, these military women are inserted into different narratives, in different ways, by vehicles as diverse as mainstream international newspapers, Christian media, magazines about female well-being, anarchist media, Kurdish activists, leftist academics, among others. Our aim is to navigate through different representations of these women, in different political contexts, searching for continuities and ruptures relating to the meanings of femininity, the ideals of freedom mobilized, and the relationship of women to these ideals. With that, we seek to understand the processes that allow for different forms of appropriation of the same elements (femininity and freedom) on behalf of different political goals.

[pt] Esta dissertação argumenta a elaboração de conceitos de manifestação de práticas autogestionárias, suas limitações quando em uma democracia liberal e suas potencialidades fora dela. Ela o faz por identificar um mal-estar presente na autogestão que é caracterizado pelas limitações que a democracia liberal impõe através de sua dominação de poder político e burocrático, resultando na opressão e no favorecimento de uns em detrimento de outros. Para explicar essa relação anta-gônica entre a democracia liberal e a autogestão, são elaborados três conceitos: Estado Omisso, Estado como Terror e Estado Inexistente. São utilizados estudos de caso para explicar como cada conceito se encaixa em uma manifestação de prática autogestionada e como esses conceitos conflitam, cada um à sua maneira, com a democracia liberal. Assim, compreende que a autogestão gera inclusão de minorias oprimidas, autonomia e aumento geral de participação política ao diluir a concentração do poder político proporcionado pela democracia liberal, promoven-do relações políticas horizontais e estimulando a democracia direta. / [en] This dissertation argues the elaboration of concepts of manifestation of self-management practices, its limitations when in a liberal democracy and its potentials outside of it. It does so by identifying a malaise present in self-management that is characterized by the limitations that liberal democracy imposes through its domination of political and bureaucratic power, resulting in the oppression and favoring of some over others. To explain this antagonistic relationship between liberal democracy and self-management, three concepts are elaborated: the Missing State, State as Terror and Nonexistent State. Case studies are used to explain how each concept fits into a manifestation of self-managed practice and how these concepts conflict, each in its own way, with liberal democracy. Thus, it understands that self-management generates inclusion of oppressed minorities, autonomy and a general increase in political participation by diluting the concentration of political power provided by liberal democracy, promoting horizontal political relations and stimulating direct democracy.

With a population of around 40 million people, Kurds are considered the largest nation without an independent state. Indeed, since the geographical division of Kurdistan in 1923, Kurds have been the victims of various forms of discrimination and oppression by the nation states of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. They deprived Kurds of their legitimate political, social and cultural rights and they oppressed their demands for political and cultural freedom through violent means. With the eruption of civil war in Syria, the regime decided to withdraw its army from the Kurdish region of Rojava. The Kurds seized the opportunity and used the power vacuum to establish their interests and agenda through establishing a democratic structure in northern parts of the country. However, instead of building a Kurdish nation-state, the people of Rojava developed a hybrid political structure known as Democratic Confederalism. Today, this system functions through hundreds of councils and assemblies in northern Syria. In the course of my study, I conducted a content analysis to see whether the structure of Rojava’s political structure corresponds to a democratic model that can facilitate the development of human rights in general and the empowerment of women in particular.

Si les Kurdes du Rojava (terme par lequel ils désignent le Kurdistan de Syrie après 2011) ont pu, comme leurs frères d’Irak dans les années 1990, profiter de l’affaiblissement du pouvoir central pour gagner une autonomie de facto, leurs orientations sont très différentes. Ce travail vise à étudier celles-ci et à évaluer défis et possibilités politiques futures s’offrant à eux. Un premier travail d’archives a examiné l’ancienneté de la présence des Kurdes en Syrie et les racines historiques de leurs revendications politiques présentes, focalisé particulièrement sur l’évolution des tribus kurdes et à leur sédentarisation rapide durant la période mandataire française (1920-1946) et les premières revendications politiques (notamment le mouvement autonomiste de 1937 en Haute Djézireh). La situation politique des Kurdes dans la Syrie de l’indépendance (1946) à la révolution (2011), a été largement déterminée par la prédominance du nationalisme arabe. L’étude des orientations des différents partis politiques kurdes, notamment dans la période de 2011 à aujourd’hui, a été menée à partir des sources et surtout de nombreux séjours de terrain, permettant de rencontrer des responsables politiques, et à partir desquels une cartographie inédite du Rojava a été élaborée. Ce mouvement, qui, au niveau international, opte après la bataille de Kobané (2014) pour l’insertion dans la coalition anti-Daech, se caractérise localement à la fois par une volonté de dépassement du nationalisme kurde et une stratégie de développement d’alliances avec les communautés non-kurdes. / Kurds of Rojava (as they have been designing Kurdistan of Syria since 2011) were able, as their Iraqi brethren from the 90s onwards, to take advantage of a weakened central government to gain de facto autonomy, with, however, very different orientations. This research aims to study these and to evaluate political challenges and opportunities awaiting them. We relied on archival work to study the history of Kurdish presence in Syria and the roots of their present political demands, particularly during the French mandate (1920-1946), with the fast evolution and settlement of the Kurdish tribes and the first political expression (in particular the 1937 autonomist movement in Upper Djezireh). Next we studied the political situation of the Kurds in Syria from independence (1946) to revolution (2011), a situation that we think was largely determined by the predominance of Arab nationalism. Studying the orientations of the Kurdish political parties in the period from 2011 to today was carried out through numerous field trips, during which we met political leaders and collected data allowing us to build an original cartography of Rojava. We concluded that this movement, which, at international level, chose after the Kobane battle to integrate the anti-ISIS coalition, is locally characterised by both a drive to move on from Kurdish nationalism and a strategy of alliance with non-Kurdish communities.

This research examines the relation of scalar arrangements of the statist political orders and the formation of the condition of exile, exemplified in the case of the Kurdish statelessness through a critical reading of Abdullah Öcalan's theory of democratic confederalism. This reading, I will argue, permits understanding the scalar implications of what I call the tyranny of the present of the state. The tyranny of the present refers to the tendency of statist formations to expand the domination of their metaphysical presence through attempting to turn their present into the future of those who are considered less developed and aiming to prevent the perception of any unpredictable future that might interrupt their presence. This temporal hegemony is imposed through a centralized and hierarchical scalar order that determines quantitative multiplication of the diversity of human societies and the order of authority of the structure that brings them together as a whole. Together the scalar-temporal arrangement of the structure implies the ways through which the presence of the state determines the condition of the impossibility of the presence of the stateless and the exclusion of the stateless determines the condition of the possibility of the presence of the state. I will argue that this is the desire to leave the aporetic condition of the state/statelessness binary that leads Öcalan to aim for the destruction of the state and the construction of a communalist structure that permits the non-exclusive existence of time’s pure being in itself. However, his solution, similar to the communalist approaches by whom he is influenced, is limited by his ignorance of the paradoxicality of the creation of communalism externally and the destruction of the state internally and by his underestimation of the state-generating forces of the of rules of securitization in the international system that is not based on communal values. / Graduate

Traditionally, war and peace have been approached as incompatible entities; where war and violence are present, peace has been assumed to be absent. Recent studies of peace in conflict have started to undermine this assumption, since expressions of peace and attempts at building peace have been found among individuals and communities entangled in violent conflicts.   This thesis explores peace in war via democratic confederalism, an ideology that is being implemented in northern Syria. An ideational analysis is used to approach the ideology, which is later compared with an analytical framework developed from liberal and critical peacebuilding to explore democratic confederalism’s similarities and deviations in regard to the two theories. Afterwards, the findings are analysed in the context of northern Syria.  The study shows that there are several intersections between aspects of critical peacebuilding and democratic confederalism. Discussed through the war in northern Syria and it is argued that the self-defence part of democratic confederalism has taken a prominent and necessary role, but one that might obscure the aspects of democratic confederalism that are peace-conducive. The research paper concludes that while this might make democratic confederalism as a whole appear less peaceful, it should be understood through the context of war and aspects that contribute to peace should be interpreted as expressions of peace in violent conflict.

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