Kurdish Studies Network

Koçer, Suncem & Candan, Can (eds) 

Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016

978-1-4438-9798-3

Without a doubt, this decade’s most discussed and developed documentary productions in Turkey come from Kurdistan, a name that provokes nationalist panic in Turkey, yet delineates distinct cultural, linguistic, and political boundaries nonetheless. Documentary film productions by Kurdish filmmakers from Turkey determine the major tendencies of this emergent genre, with such productions offering a unique opportunity for a nuanced understanding of national cinema. The larger body of films, fiction and non-fiction termed as Kurdish cinema complicates the category of national cinema, a concept discussed heatedly within the field of cinema studies. Documentary film is proving to be a particularly complex tool for the Kurdish social and political existence, as Kurds lack the official tools of history-writing and cultural preservation that are categorically associated with the capacities of a state. By delving into Kurdish documentary films as products of complex societal, political, and historical processes, the articles in the volume highlight the intersections of media production, film text, and audience reception, and expand on vibrant debates in the field of film and media studies through situated case studies. Bringing these chapters together, this book will stimulate academic discussion around this emergent and lively genre of documentary film production, and encourage further research and publication.

For details click here.

Mahmod, Jovan

Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

• ISBN 978-1-137-51347-2

The argument offered in this book is that new technology, as opposed to traditional media such as television, radio, and newspaper, is working against the national grain to weaken its imagined community. Online activities and communications between people and across borders suggest that digital media has strong implications for different articulations of identity and belongingness, which open new ways of thinking about the imagined community. The findings are based on transnational activities by Kurdish diaspora members across borders that have pushed them to rethink notions of belonging and identity. Through a multidisciplinary and comparative approach, and multifaceted (online-offline) methodologies, the book unveils tensions between new and old media, and how the former is not only changing social relations but also exposing existing ones. Living in two or more cultures, speaking multiple languages, and engaging in transnational practices, diaspora individuals may have created a momentum that discloses how the imagined nation is diminishing in this digital era.

For details click here.

Middle East Gender Forum, 7-8 April 2017, Iraqi Kurdistan Region, University of Sulaimani 

Middle East Gender Forum, 7-8 April 2017, Iraqi Kurdistan Region, University of Sulaimani 

Friday, September 9, 2016, 2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Board Source Conference Room 750 9th St NW, Suite 650, Washington, DC 20001

The Kurdish Policy Research Center (KPRC) is pleased to organize the panel entitled ‘Turkey’s Intervention in Rojava and Its Consequences’.

On Wednesday August 24 Turkish tanks entered the borderline territory in Rojava (Northern Syria) along with Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army. According to the Turkish sources the objective of the “Operation Euphrates Shield” is to ‘stabilize’ the situation by clearing ISIS from Jarablus, the last stronghold of ISIS on the Turkish-Syrian border that is less than a mile from Turkey. However, soon after capturing Jarablus, the so-called Free Syrian Army supported by Turkish tanks advanced south towards Kurdish held territories where they engaged in clashes with the Kurdish YPG-led Democratic Syrian Forces. Since then Turkish tanks and artillery have been shelling not only the YPG, America’s most trusted ally in the fight against DAESH, but also the civilian population in Jarablus and Manbij.

The latest Turkish attacks on YPG have made it crystal clear that the real motivation behind the Turkish invasion of Rojava does not stem from the threat from DAESH, as the Turks claim, but from Turkey’s desire to prevent an autonomous Kurdish region emerging in northern Syria. To this end Turkey threatened to intensify its attacks on the Kurdish YPG forces, if the latter does not comply with Turkey’s request to withdraw from Manbij, a town newly liberated from DAESH by YPG, and remain the east of the Euphrates River.

Our distinguished panelists will bring their expertise to our gathering and offer their views on the root causes of the current political crisis in Rojava, discuss the political implications of the recent Turkish invasion as well as the clashes between Turkish-backed FSA and the Kurdish YPG and explore ways to find a peaceful solution.

The KPRC hopes that you can join us on September 9 for this exciting event that is aimed at offering an understanding of the political implications of the recent clashes between Turkish-backed FSA and the Kurdish YPG-led Democratic Syrian Forces.

RSVP Required to attend this event.
For media inquiries and questions, please contact: info@kprc.us

Panelists:

Salih Muslim:

Salih Muslim is the co-chairman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in de facto autonomous Kurdish-controlled region of Rojava in Northern Syria. He is also the deputy coordinator of the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change.

* Mr. Muslim will participate via Skype

Professor Dlawer Ala’Aldeen:

Professor Ala’Aldeen is the Founding President of the Middle East Research Institute (MERI), a policy research institute and a think tank based in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq.  He is a former Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Kurdistan Regional Government (2009-2012). Dlawer has been an advocate of, and published extensively on, human rights, good governance and democracy in Kurdistan, Iraq and the wider Middle East.

Aliza Marcus:

Aliza Marcus is formerly an international correspondent for The Boston Globe and lives in Washington, D.C. She covered the PKK for more than eight years, first as a freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor and later as a staff writer for Reuters, receiving a National Press Club Award for her reporting. She is also a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation grant for her work (NYU Press).

3-4 November 2016, University of Sussex

• Democracy and democratic confederalism
• Gender and women’s movements
• Pluralism in political practice
• Economic transformations
• Social / political ecology
• Solidarity across social movements within the region or across the world

• Title of presentation
• Presenter name, affiliation (if applicable) and contact details
• Type of presentation (e.g. paper, visual art / photography, etc.)
• Up to five key words / themes
• Abstract / presentation description of no more than 500 words
• Proposals based on original audio-visual work may also include a sample, either as a URL linking to media, or as images embedded in a Word or PDF document
• A brief statement of need if you wish to be considered for travel assistance.

University of Southern California, Annenberg School of Communication, Room 207, September 29, 2016, 5 pm-7:30 pm.

Join Professor Amir Sharifi of CSU Long Beach and Professor Asli Bâli of UCLA for a discussion of current Kurdish politics at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. The speakers will focus in particular on the Turkish government’s responses to Kurdish public diplomacy efforts. Evîn Cheikosman, M.A. Candidate in the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, will moderate the discussion.

Amir Sharifi is the Director of the Kurdish Human Rights Advocacy Group, President of the Kurdish American Education Society and Lecturer of Linguistics at California State University, Long Beach.

Ali Bali is a Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law. She teaches Public International Law, International Human Rights and a seminar on the Laws of War. She joined UCLA from the Yale Law School where she was the Irving S. Ribicoff Fellow in Law, and coordinator of the Middle East Legal Forum.

The event will be held in ASC 207. Refreshments will be served. To join the event, click here.

Contact: shofani@usc.edu

Tax, Meredith

Trade Paper, 2016

ISBN: 9781942658108

In war-torn northern Syria, a democratic society—based on secularism, ethnic inclusiveness, and gender equality—has won significant victories against the Islamic State, or Daesh, with women on the front lines as fierce warriors and leaders.

A Road Unforeseen recounts the dramatic, underreported history of the Rojava Kurds, whose all-women militia was instrumental in the perilous mountaintop rescue of tens of thousands of civilians besieged in Iraq. Up to that point, the Islamic State had seemed invincible. Yet these women helped vanquish them, bringing the first half of the refugees to safety within twenty-four hours.

Who are the revolutionary women of Rojava and what lessons can we learn from their heroic story? How does their political philosophy differ from that of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Islamic State, and Turkey? And will the politics of the twenty-first century be shaped by the opposition between these political models?

For details click here.

Danilovich, Alex 

Routledge, 2017

ISBN 9781138204478

The changes brought by the Arab Spring and ensuing developments in the Middle East have made the Kurds an important force in the region. Tel-Aviv and Washington place high hopes on Erbil to facilitate their dealings with Baghdad, Damascus, Teheran and Ankara. Kurds living in Turkey, Syria and Iran have been inspired by the successes of their brethren in Iraq who managed to gain significant independence and make remarkable achievements in state building. The idea of a greater Kurdistan is in the air. This book focuses on how the Kurds have become a new and significant force in Middle Eastern politics. International expert contributors conceptualize current developments putting them into theoretical perspective, helping us to better understand the potential role the Kurds could play in the Middle East.

For details click here.

Mehmet Orhan 

Routledge, 2016

ISBN 9781138918870

The Kurdish conflict is an acknowledged long-standing issue in the Middle East, and the emergence of radical Kurdish nationalist movements in the 20th century played a decisive role in the evolution of political violence.

Political Violence and Kurds in Turkey examines how this political violence impacts Kurds in contemporary Turkey, and explores the circumstances that move human beings to violent acts. It looks at the forms political violence takes and in which times and spaces it occurs, as well as the roles played by micro and macro factors. It takes a theoretical approach to violence, as both producer and product of interrelations between many actors, and contextualises this with studies of violence in Kurdish villages and towns. The book evaluates the three levels at which political violence operates; between the state and Kurdish movements, among Kurdish groups and between Kurdish political organizations and Kurdish society, and divides it into its different aspects and processes; fragmentation-segmentation (signifying intra-ethnic struggles between Kurdish actors), mobilization (the course leading the Kurdish movement to armed conflict), participation (the use of violence by individuals) and repertoires (the forms taken by political violence).

Offering an in-depth analysis of the dynamics behind political violence and its use amongst Kurds in Turkey, this book will be a key resource for students and scholars of Middle Eastern, Kurdish Studies and Conflict Studies, and offers new understanding and approaches to the study of political violence.

For details click here.

Michael M. Gunter (ed.)

Mazda Publishers, 2016

ISBN: 978-1568593104

This volume contains 13 essays, written by a group of distinguished scholars, on the most important issues facing the Kurds today. Subjects covered include politics, economics, ISIS, and number of issues that will be of interest to scholars, practitioners, and the intelligent lay public. Moreover, in delving into the nuances of such themes as ethno-nationalist origins, self-determination, US-KRG relations, democratic autonomy, ISIS, Kobane, the Kurdish Diaspora, Ataturk and Bourguiba, among others, these essays will definitely stand the test of time. The volume is dedicated to Robert W. Olson, a distinguished and recognized pioneer in the study of the Kurdish people and their relations with the neighboring countries, especially Turkey.

For details click here.

Tözün, Issa

Routledge, 2017

ISBN 9781472456441

The Alevis are a significant minority in Turkey, and now also in the countries of Western Europe. Over the past century, many of them have migrated from rural enclaves on the Anatolian plateau to the great cities of Istanbul and Ankara, and from there to the countries of the European Union. This book asks who are they? How do they construct their identities – now and in the past; in Turkey and in Europe?

A range of scholars, writing from sociological, historical, socio-psychological and political perspectives, present analysis and research that shows the Alevi communities grouping and regrouping, defining and redefining – sometimes as an ethnic minority, sometimes as religious groups, sometimes around a political philosophy – contingently responding to circumstances of the Turkish Republic’s political position and to the immigration policies of Western Europe. Contributors consider Alevi roots and cultural practices in their villages of origin; the changes in identity following the migration to the gecekondu shanty towns surrounding the cities of Turkey; the changes consequent on their second diaspora to Germany, the UK, Sweden and other European countries; and the implications of European citizenship for their identity. This collection offers a new and significant contribution to the study of migration and minorities in the wider European context.

Click here for details.

Kurdish Studies, Volume 4, Issue 1, May 2016

Articles

Language Shift Among Kurds in Turkey: A Spatial and Demographic Analysis

Sinan Zeyneloğlu, Ibrahim Sirkeci, Yaprak Civelek

In Search of Moral Imagination that Tells Us “Who the Kurds Are”: Toward a New Theoretical Approach to Modern Kurdish Literature

Joanna Bocheńska

Viewpoint

Making Sense: Research as Active Engagement

Book Reviews

The Kurdish Spring: A New Map of the Middle East

David L. Phillips

Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire

Bedross Der Matossian

The Kurdish Liberation Movement in Iraq: From Insurgency to Statehood

Yaniv Voller

Imagining Kurdistan: Identity, Culture and Society

Özlem Galip

The Kurds of Iraq: Nationalism and Identity in Iraqi Kurdistan

Mahir A. Aziz

Welat Zeydanlioglu

Managing Editor

editor@kurdishstudies.net

Kurdish Studies is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal.

ISSN: 2051-4883 e-ISNN: 2051-4891

http://www.kurdishstudies.net

Hamelink, Wendelmoet

Brill, 2016

ISBN 9789004314818

The Sung Home tells the story of Kurdish singer-poets (dengbêjs) in Kurdistan in Turkey, who are specialized in the recital singing of historical songs. After a long period of silence, they returned to public life in the 2000s and are presented as guardians of history and culture. Their lyrics, life stories, and live performances offer fascinating insights into cultural practices, local politics and the contingencies of state borders. Decades of oppression have deeply politicized and moralized cultural and musical production. Through in-depth ethnographic analysis Hamelink highlights the variety of personal and social narratives within a society in turmoil. Set within the larger global stories of modernity, nationalism, and Orientalism, this study reflects on different ideas about what it means to create a Kurdish home.

For details click here.

Afro-Middle East Centre invites to the symposium entitled: The Kurds and New Political Projects, 18 May 2016, The Sheraton Pretoria Hotel

Following the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, and the eruption of the Middle East and North Africa uprisings in 2011, Kurds of the Middle East have been confronted with new realities that included civil war, revolutionary moments, deteriorating economies, promises of an end to their marginalisation, and even genocidal actions, resulting in the development of different political projects posited as ways to secure their rights. This symposium will examine the Kurdish experience, and consider the forms of these new political projects, as well as the potential of their success.

Speakers:

• Judge Essa Moosa
• Rosa Burc
• Galip Dalay
• Ethem Coban
• Nick Rodrigo

Soheil, Adel

Häftad, 2016

ISBN 9789163902321

The Sykes-Picot Agreement map, signed in May 1916 by the Imperial powers of Great Britain and France, constituted the blueprint for redrawing the map of the Middle East after the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, in 1918, by the victorious Allies, thus dividing the Arab territories as well as Kurdistan into its current form. In this book, the author makes an ambitious attempt to provide a comprehensive new insight into the Kurdish national movement and its struggle against the mandatory power (the British) and the Iraqi government for achievement of national selfdetermination from 1918 to 1932.

The book explores both Kurdish and Arab nationalism within the context of power relations in international politics at the time on the one hand, and in relation to domestic political development in Iraq on the other. Thereby, salient issues are explained, inter alia, the reasons for Britain’s failure to create a modern national state in Iraq, Anglo-Iraqi authorities’ reluctance to accommodate Kurdish rights and their policy to incorporate Kurdistan into the nascent Iraqi state, the U.S. interests and implication in the region, along with President Wilson’s principle of self-determination and its impact on Kurdish and Arab nationalism.

For details click here.

Background:

The Kurds are one of the world’s largest ethnic groups without a state, constituting sizable minorities in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. They have recently become prominent in world politics due to their fight against the Islamic State in the midst of Syria’s civil war. Yet until now, their history has largely been one of marginalization, oppression, and resistance across borders. It is estimated that about half of world’s more than 30 million Kurds live in Turkey, where they have struggled for self-governance through parliamentarian politics and armed conflict for over 30 years. The three-year peace talks between the Turkish State and the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, the main armed group of the Kurds) was terminated in July 2015 by the Turkish state, leading to yet another cycle of violence. Hundreds of civilian casualties, thousands of displaced Kurds, and terrified Kurdish and Turkish societies thus joined the long history of violence and deprivation in Turkey.

About this conference:

This international conference aims to bring together cutting-edge research examining the last hundred years of Kurdish existence in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic in a historical and comparative perspective.

November 3-4, 2016
Evanston, Illinois

• Abstract Deadline: June 1
• Paper Deadline: October 1

Call for submissions:

We invite paper proposals on the past and present of Kurds and the Kurdish politics in Turkey and the Middle East, in comparison to similar struggles in other parts of the world.

We especially welcome papers on the following topics:

• The historical construction of “the Kurdish Question” in history
• The Kurdish case in comparison with other ethnic and/or colonial struggles
• The impact of international power struggles on the Kurds in Turkey and the Middle East
• Shifts in Kurdish politics in relation to the ongoing civil war in Syria and the state formation in Iraqi Kurdistan
• The impact of the processes of neoliberal capitalism on Kurdish politics
• Status of Kurdish citizens in Turkey and Turkish constitutional politics with regard to the issues of pluralism and demands for autonomy
• The impact of political, religious, linguistic, and class divisions on Kurdish politics in Turkey
• “Kurdish-ness” and “Turkish-ness” at the intersection of power and privilege in changing Turkey
• The role of gender, patriarchy, and feminism in Kurdish politics
• Generational and demographic change among the Kurds and Kurdish political movements
• Politics of the Kurdish diaspora
• Discourses and knowledge production about the Kurds and Kurdish politics

We encourage submissions from PhD candidates and junior scholars.

Please submit your paper abstract of 250-300 words by June 1. Any questions may be sent to turkishstudies@northwestern.edu.

For details click here.

University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, August 25-26, 2016

Background and scope

After two conferences in Bamberg (2013) and Mardin (2014), the 3rd International Conference on Kurdish Linguistics (ICKL) will take place at the University of Amsterdam on August 25-26, 2016. The event is jointly organized by the Department of General Linguistics at the University of Bamberg and the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication. The conference serves as a forum of scientific exchange for linguists working on any aspect of Kurdish, including the interactions with its neighboring languages. Accordingly, we welcome contributions which address these issues from the perspectives of various subdomains of linguistics, such as sociolinguistics, descriptive and typologically-oriented analyses of phonology and morphosyntax, grammaticalization and historical development, formal approaches to the grammar, pragmatics, language acquisition, language contact, and corpus linguistics.

Abstract submission

Authors are invited to submit anonymized abstracts, limited to one single and one co-authored presentation per person, for 20-minute talks. The language of the conference is English.

Abstracts should not exceed 2 pages in length (including examples and references) with 12 point font size (Times New Roman) and 1.5 line spacing. Abstracts should be sent by March 30, 2015, as an attachment in pdf and docx formats to: kurdishlinguisticsconference@yahoo.com

In the body of the email, please include the following information: Title of paper, Your name, Affiliation and address, E-mail address.

Keynote speaker: Donald Stilo (MPI Leipzig – retired)

Important Dates

• Extended deadline for abstract submission: April 24, 2016
• Notification to authors: May 5, 2016
• Conference date: August 25-26, 2016

There is a conference fee of 30 Euros, to be paid in cash on arrival, which will also cover the conference dinner and morning and afternoon coffee.

Please note that the conference cannot provide reimbursement for travel and accommodation costs.

Organizing Committee

Margreet Dorleijn: (local organizer), M.Dorleijn@uva.nl

Songül Gündoğdu: snglgndgdu@gmail.com

Ergin Öpengin: ergin.opengin@uni-bamberg.de

Conference webpage: https://www.uni-bamberg.de/aspra/ickl3

Between loyalty and critique: Moral and political dilemmas in contemporary Northern Kurdistan and beyond, 115th American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual Meeting, November 16-20, 2016, Minneapolis, USA.

Situated at the heart of the violent transformations the Middle East is currently undergoing, the Kurdish political movement has recently enjoyed unprecedented international attention. Yet even though it has only recently been ‘discovered’ by international audiences, the Kurdish movement has in fact for decades been invested in the creation of alternative subjectivities, socialities, and living spaces. In this session, we seek to take a close ethnographic look at the life worlds the Kurdish movement has successfully produced. Recognizing the centrality of gendered logics in the construction of those life worlds, we ask what happens when resistance becomes hegemonic. What sorts of gendered dilemmas does the institutionalisation of resistance produce, and how do subjects manoeuvre the resulting moral and political terrains? Our point of departure is the Kurdish movement in Turkey, yet we welcome contributions with parallel questions in contexts where radical movements have become hegemonic.

Feminist scholarship on the anthropology of war and violence has complicated categories of victimhood and trauma (Helms 2013; Visweswaran 2013), critically interrogated the connections between nationalism and feminism (Al-Ali and Pratt 2011; Çağlayan 2013), and pointed to gender and agency beyond the liberal paradigm (Åhäll and Shepherd 2012). Inspired by these lines of inquiry, we invite a shift of focus in the anthropological study of resistance in Northern Kurdistan and other contexts of on-going violence and occupation. Existing literature in this field focuses on political violence primarily as productive of subjects and discourses of suffering, trauma and victimhood. This focus, however, risks limiting our understanding of resistance as it comes to be directed not only against oppressive states but also against oppositional movements. Rather than asking how political violence produces structures of suffering, here we therefore ask how it creates patterns of loyalty and how such loyalty, in turn, engenders its own critiques. Attending to gender as an analytical tool to examine moral registers is particularly well suited, we suggest, for understanding the dilemmas resulting from these tensions between loyalty and critique.

This session seeks to shed light on dynamic political spheres in contexts of ongoing or recent violent conflict and the intense contestations over the meaning of political, moral, and ethno-national identifications characterising them. We invite contributions exploring – but not limited to – the following questions: What sorts of dilemmas emerge when oppositional movements become hegemonic? How do discourses of political loyalty engender their own specific forms of critique? How are resulting dilemmas negotiated and experienced? How does the intense politicization of public and private spaces create or foreclose possibilities for carving out autonomous spaces beyond two opposing political fronts? In accord with this year’s meeting theme, we also ask, how do gendered dilemmas, as responses to ever-shifting political paradigms and fluctuations in values, produce or disclose political action?What sort of challenges do gendered dilemmas bring to political and national projects and how might they lead to innovative and creative political articulations? Finally, how might dilemmas be resolved?

Please email your paper abstracts (max. 250 words) by April 7 to Esin Düzel esinduzel@gmail.com and Marlene Schäfers marlene.schafers@gmail.com