Struggle for a Livable Life Everyday Resistance among the Kurdish Population in Turkey A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2014 Ulrike Flader School of Social Science Contents Contents ................................................................................................................................... 2 List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ 5 List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................. 7 Abstract .................................................................................................................................... 8 Declaration ............................................................................................................................... 9 Copyright Statement ................................................................................................................ 9 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 10 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 11 1.1 The Kurdish Movement in Turkey and Everyday Resistance ...................................... 12 1.2 Overview of Chapters .................................................................................................. 16 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODS ...................................................................... 20 2.1 Research Objects: Practices, not Actors ....................................................................... 21 2.2 Grasping Complexity and Entanglement ...................................................................... 22 2.3 Details of a Multi-Site Ethnography ............................................................................. 23 2.3.1 Choosing Research Locations: Diyabakir, Kızıltepe, Izmir and Bursa ....................... 23 2.3.2 Formal and Informal Interviews ............................................................................... 26 2.3.3 The Interviewees ...................................................................................................... 27 2.3.4 Observations and Other Data Sources ..................................................................... 29 2.3.5 Gaining Access and Trust ......................................................................................... 30 2.4 Research in a Highly Politicized Atmosphere ............................................................... 31 2.4.1 Ensuring Anonymity ................................................................................................. 32 2.4.2 “Are You a Spy?” and the Impossibility of a “Neutral” Image ................................. 33 2.4.3 Ethical Issues of Knowledge Production .................................................................. 35 CHAPTER 3: THE TECHNIQUES OF ASSIMILATION AND THE PRODUCTION OF TURKISH SUBJECTIVITY ...................................................................................... 36 3.1 Discursive Forclosure: The Non-Word “Kurd” .............................................................. 39 3.2 Elimination of Language ............................................................................................... 42 3.3 Learnt Inferiority and Crisis of Subjectivity .................................................................. 45 3.4 Shaping the Modern Body ............................................................................................ 50 3.5 Criminalizing Kurdishness ............................................................................................. 53 3.5.1 Torture as Turkification Techniques ......................................................................... 54 3.5.2 Anti-Terrorism Act: The Production of a Loyal Citizen ............................................. 55 3.5.3 Detaining Kurdistan: Control and Surveillance ........................................................ 56 3.6 Neoliberal Governmentality: Racism and Multiculturalism ......................................... 58 3.6.1 The Absolute Other: Traitors, Terrorists and Pseudo-Citizens ................................. 58 3.6.2 The AKP Government’s Multicultural Project: Production of Kurdish Brothers ...... 59 2 CHAPTER 4: THEORIZING EVERYDAY RESISTANCE ............................................... 63 4.1 Scott and The Rise of the Everyday for Resistance ...................................................... 64 4.2 Foucault on Resistance: Destabilizing Techniques of Power from Within .................. 66 4.2.1 Battles of Truth ........................................................................................................ 67 4.2.2 Bodies and Pleasures: Challenging Biopower .......................................................... 70 4.2.3 Shifting Subjectivities: Counter-Conduct ................................................................. 72 4.2.4 Aesthetics of the Self: Creativity in Conduct ........................................................... 74 4.2.5 Common Creative Action and Political Spirituality .................................................. 76 4.3 Social Movements Studies and the Everyday .............................................................. 79 CHAPTER 5: KURDISHNESS: IDENTITY AS A SITE OF STRUGGLE ............................ 82 5.1 Impossibility of “Full” Kurdishness ............................................................................... 82 5.2 Becoming Kurdish ........................................................................................................ 85 5.3 Claiming Ethnic Difference ........................................................................................... 89 5.4 Awareness of Assimilation ........................................................................................... 94 5.5 Distrusting the State .................................................................................................... 96 5.6 Shared Experience of Pain ........................................................................................... 98 5.7 At Feud with the State: Defending the PKK and Voting for the Kurdish Party .......... 100 5.8 Reclaiming the Village and the Mountains ................................................................ 103 CHAPTER 6: POLITICIZATION OF EXISTENCE ....................................................... 107 6.1 Visualizing Kurdishness .............................................................................................. 108 6.1.1 Flagging the Body ................................................................................................... 108 6.1.2 Reclaiming the Rural .............................................................................................. 111 6.1.3 Embodying Opposition .......................................................................................... 114 6.1.4 Passing Strategies and Masquerade ...................................................................... 115 6.1.5 Moralizing Visualization ......................................................................................... 117 6.2 Speaking Back and Staying Silent: Language ............................................................. 121 6.2.1 Refusing to Speak: Dropping Out of School and Turning Ones Back on Turkish ... 121 6.2.2 Relearning Kurdish ................................................................................................. 127 6.2.3 Reclaiming Names .................................................................................................. 131 6.3 Subjugated Narratives of Tradition, Pain and the Struggle ....................................... 136 6.3.1 Narrating Oneself into Tradition ............................................................................ 139 6.3.2 The Family as Carrier and Audience of the Hidden Knowledge ............................ 140 6.3.3 Experiencing the Narrative of Pain ........................................................................ 143 6.3.4 The Struggle as Family Relation ............................................................................. 146 6.4 Forbidden Practices ................................................................................................... 148 6.4.1 Countering “Cultural Genocide”: Narrating Kurdishness through Cultural Practices ........................................................................................................................................ 149 6.4.2 Cultural Weapons and Dangerous Objects ............................................................ 153 6.4.3 Practices of Concealment ...................................................................................... 156 3 6.4.4 Forbidden “Own” Culture ...................................................................................... 157 CHAPTER 7: INSURRECTIONS OF CONDUCT ...................................................... 162 7.1 Breaking Performative Turkishness ............................................................................ 162 7.1.1 Refusing Injurious Interpellation ............................................................................ 164 7.1.2 Parodic Repetitions ................................................................................................ 167 7.1.4 Silent Non-Compliance