عنوان

The Kurdish national movement in Turkey :

Number

TLets676322

Title Proper

The Kurdish national movement in Turkey :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Saeed, Seevan

Title Proper by Another Author

from the PKK to the KCK

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Githens-Mazer, Jonathan

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Exeter

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2014

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Thesis (Ph.D.)

Text preceding or following the note

2014

Text of Note

This thesis examines the transformation of the Kurdish national struggle in Turkey from a political movement to a social movement. The Thesis will argue that the Kurdish national struggle during the Twentieth Century in Turkey was largely a failure, and that the emergence of the Unions of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK) has been a direct and concrete response to this failure. The thesis will track how the KCK has transformed a one-dimensional political nationalist struggle into a multi-dimensional one, including politics, culture and society for the Kurds living in Turkey. The focus here will be on the period from March 2005, when the KCK was established, until July 2011 when the KCK announced its Democratic Autonomy project. In order to explain how and why the KCK has emerged, the Thesis takes an approach based on social movement theories to analyse the KCK as a social and cultural nationalist movement that deploys various approaches and techniques. The KCK is shown to take this new and more popular and successful tact through a comparison of the discourse surrounding the Kurdish national struggle before and after the establishment of the KCK. The 'new discourse' of multi-dimensional struggle is, in particular, compared with the old unadulterated discourse of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which was a straight reaction to the Turkish state policy towards the Kurds and their struggle. The analysis of this process is accomplished through an examination of numerous contemporary resources such as the PKK and the KCK policies and literatures, government intelligence reports, books, journals, and through conducting tens of qualitative interviews alongside comprehensive observation during my fieldwork for this thesis. Ultimately, the Thesis will argue that the transformation of discourse for the KCK from the PKK is evident in its "Democratic Autonomy model". The KCK proposes this model as an alternative to the nation state model in Turkey.

Kurdistan; Nationalism; KCK; PKK; Democratic Autonomy; Middle East

Saeed, Seevan

Githens-Mazer, Jonathan

University of Exeter

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y