THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PUBLICS OF VALUE: HIGHER EDUCATION AND LANGUAGE ACTIVISM IN TURKEY AND NORTH KURDISTAN A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY BY PATRICK CHARLES LEWIS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2020 Copyright © Patrick Charles Lewis All rights reserved. For Mesut, my first housemate in Istanbul and my first guide in Mardin و برای ساناز که عشقش صبرش و پشتیبانیش شرایط امکان این پروژه بودند با این امید که روزی همدیگر را ببینید. Table of Contents List of Figures v Timeline vii Acknowledgments viii Introduction 1 Part I Chapter 1: Mardin Between Kurdistan and Mesopotamia 41 Chapter 2: Language, the City and the University in Mesopotamia 84 Part II Chapter 3: Tea, Samimiyet, and the National Public 129 Chapter 4: Cafe Culture in North Kurdistan 173 Chapter 5: Value Creation and Kurdish Public Formation in the Pirtûk Kafe 209 Part III Chapter 6: Teachers, Schools, and Memurluk in North Kurdistan 250 Part IV Chapter 7: Language and Publics of Value 299 Appendix 380 Works Cited 386 iv List of Figures (All maps, photographs and screenshots from social and news media were made by the author) Figure 1.1: Map of Mardin in Kurdistan and Upper Mesopotamia……………………………...42 Figure 1.2: Map of Mardin Province…………………………………………………………….43 Figure 1.3: Border infrastructure in Mardin province……………………………………..…….55 Figure 1.4: Multilingual municipal signs in Mardin and Diyarbakir…………………………….66 Figure 1.5: Mardin’s Yeni Şehir (New City)……………………………………………………..75 Figure 1.6: EU-supported heritage development in Mardin……………………………………..78 Figure 1.7: Mardin Artuklu University Campus…………………………………………………81 Figure 2.1: Union membership calendars in the LLI…………………………………………...121 Figure 2.2: Turkish Ministry of Education approved Kurdish-language textbooks……………124 Figure 3.1: Kaçak çay on sale in Mardin……………………………………………………….133 Figure 3.2: Kaçak çay on menus in Beyoğlu, Istanbul………………………………………....135 Figure 3.3: Screen-Shots from TRT1 News Report on kaçak çay……………………………...141 Figure 3.4: Tea and samimiyet meme…………………………………………………………..144 Figure 3.5: Davutoğlu and Önder’s press conferences…………………………………………157 Figure 4.1: New style kafes in North Kurdistan………………………………………………..189 Figure 5.1: Entrances to Kurdish book kafes…………………………………………………...217 Figure 5.2: Instagram post on Kurdish books…………………………………………………..227 Figure 5.3: Commercial, Kurdish-named kafes in Diyarbakir………………………………….231 Figure 5.4: Interior of a book kafe in Mardin…………………………………………………..238 Figure 7.1: Twitter post on Kurdish translation………………………………………………...302 Figure 7.2: Multilingual political slogans on T-shirts………………………………………….306 Figure 7.3: Kurdish Language Day celebrations in Mardin……………………………………323 v Figure 7.4: Kurdish Language Day Instagram story……………………………………………339 Figure 7.5: Kurdish Lessons on social media……………………………………..……………344 Figure 7.6: Replies to Kurdish lesson on social media…………………………………………345 Figure 7.7: Kurdish grammar correction in Instagram story…………………………………...352 Figure 7.8: Instagram post with excerpts from Baran’s Ferhenga Bişaftinê (2017)...................356 vi Timeline 1923: Foundation of the Turkish Republic 1978: Foundation the PKK 1980: 12th of September Military Coup 1984: Beginning of PKK’s armed insurgency 1992: Foundation of the Istanbul Kurdish Institute 1999: Capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan 2002: AKP’s first electoral victory and beginning of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rule as PM 2003: US invasion of Iraq 2007: Foundation of Artuklu University in Mardin 2009: Beginning of Kurdish Opening 2010: Foundation of the Living Language Institute (LLI) 2011: Beginning of the Syrian Civil War 2013: Official launch of the peace process, Gezi uprisings 2014: Election of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Turkish Presidency, Battle of Kobane 2015: HDP success in June elections, break-down of peace process and outbreak of City War, ISIS bombings 2016: Final months City War; July 15th coup attempt; the beginning of Teachers’ purge; dissolution of pro-Kurdish municipal governments 2018: Turkish General Elections 2019: Victory of pro-Kurdish parties in municipal elections in North Kurdistan and their dissolution for a second time. vii Acknowledgments My research in Mardin was made possible by the generous welcome and years of support of dozens of people, as well as the kindness of countless others around the city and the province. Kawa Nemir hosted me in his home my first two summers in Mardin while Salîh Qoser and Cûmhûr Ölmez taught me Kurdish. Mikail and Hatice opened their home to me, literally and bureaucratically, when I first needed a legal residence. For the many hours spent together in and between state offices on my account, I am eternally grateful. Bilal Korkut and his family hosted me many times in Nusaybin. Bilal was also responsible for many of my most propitious introductions and was always one of my most reliable sources of information about the city, Kurdistan, and Kurdish-language activism. He also became a good friend over this past half- decade and this project would have been much the poorer without his knowledge and help. I am also indebted to the faculty at the LLI for their confidence and their willingness to take a chance on me. In particular, Dr. Mikaîl Bilbil, who personally arranged for my affiliation with the LLI my first two summers in Mardin; as well as to my advisor at the LLI, Dr. Mustafa Aslan, who was a steady presence and constant advocate at the LLI on my behalf. Finally, I am especially grateful to my classmates in the MA program during the 2017-2018 year, whose patience and encouragement mattered immensely to the outcome of this project – in particular, to Şafî, Mehdî and Şevîn who helped me so much during my first semester at the institute. In another sense, this project is the culmination of more than a decade of study in Turkey. It is also, therefore, the product of the support of the dozens of friends, colleagues, and teachers who helped to lay on the foundation of which it was built. At Cornell, Deniz İpek and Ayşe Özcan first taught me Turkish; and Kora Bättig v.W. opened my horizons and first inspired in me the confidence and enthusiasm to take on a project such as this. In Istanbul, my friends and viii comrades at Mayista Yaşam were my most important, practical introduction to education, social organizing, and politics in Turkey and pushed me to think of scholarship as political praxis. I am likewise grateful to all of my professors at Sabanci University who first introduced me to the social sciences in Turkey and under whose guidance the origins of this project would emerge. Here, especially, I need to thank Şerif Derince, my first Kurdish teacher, and Ayşe Parla, Ayşe Öncü, and Banu Karaca – great teachers who also vouched early for my potential as a researcher and scholar. Again, I am deeply indebted to my many former classmates at Sabanci who have remained close colleagues and friends over the past decade, especially (but in no way limited to): Akanksha Misra, Armanç Yıldız, Aydin Özipek, Britt Van Paepeghem, Çiçek İlengiz, Duygu Ula, Emre Şahin, Ezgi Güner, and Sertaç Sen. Can Dölek deserves special mention for opening his home to me in Istanbul during my last two years of research in Turkey. In Chicago, much credit must go to my committee: especially my chair, Sue Gal, who taught me how to think about language and the social world and whose careful reading and insightful comments made the final product much better. Francois Richard generously agreed to read much of this when it was still unformed and his early interventions were invaluable. He has also been a model for how to think about and teach social theory. John Kelly was always an encouraging and ever-erudite voice that pushed me to think beyond my preferred questions and to consider less-emphasized dimensions of my work. It is richer as a result. This project would never have been completed without the friendship and collegiately of my many peers at the University of Chicago who made graduate school worthwhile as an intellectual endeavor and as a source of community. This list is too long to print in its entirety. But I must single out, without exception, my entire 2013 graduate cohort as well as the organizers and participants of the Semiotics Workshop. I need specially acknowledge fellow ix members of my writing groups who commented on this work: Rebecca Journey, Janet Conor, Hiroko Kumaki, and Fadi Hakim. Kelly Mulvaney, Grigory Gorbun, Rachel Howard and, Roy Kimmey arranged for me to workshop portions of this project and both Myungji Lee and Hazal Çorak provided generative comments. Xelef Botan was always willing to think through my analyses with me and to answer my questions about Kurdish; his knowledge was indispensable at various points during this project’s completion. Other faculty and staff at the UofC have also played important roles in the development of this project: Kağan Arık introduced me to Turkic linguistics, and Helga Anetshofer, and Hakan Karateke taught me to read Ottoman. I also benefited from learning the basics of Arabic and Persian from Osama Abu-Eledam and Saeed Yousef. Darryl Li generously agreed to read this dissertation and I am grateful for his insightful comments questions. I would certainly have been lost many times over without Anne Chien, who over seven years did a hundred favors for me, big and small, and always knew the answers to my questions. Meredith Clason also went to bat for me twice with the Department of Education to obtain permission for me to study Kurdish in Kurdistan – no small administrative feat and a critical intervention in the development of this project. Beyond the University of Chicago, Michael Chyet was also an important resource and a great Kurdish teacher. This work has also benefited immensely from comments offered over the years at various conferences, including from Attila Aytekin, Natalia Bermúdez, Ofra Bengio, Diego Arispe-Bazán, and Zeynep Devrim Gürsel.