A Transdisciplinary Perspective on the Historical Traumas among Armenian, Kurdish, and Turkish People of Anatolia: Transgenerational Trauma, "Turkishness," and the Epistemologies of Ignorance
General Material Designation
[Thesis]
First Statement of Responsibility
Soyalp, Nermin
Subsequent Statement of Responsibility
Montuori, Alfonso
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
California Institute of Integral Studies
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2019
GENERAL NOTES
Text of Note
511 p.
DISSERTATION (THESIS) NOTE
Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree
Ph.D.
Body granting the degree
California Institute of Integral Studies
Text preceding or following the note
2019
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
This study focuses on the major impacts of reported historical traumas among ethnic groups (Armenian, Kurdish, and Turkish) in Anatolia, Turkey, since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and how an understanding of significant psychosocial impacts might support current reconciliation and healing efforts among these politically conflicted groups. Historical trauma is here defined as the complex, lasting, and devastating physical, social, and psychological impacts upon a massive number of people at the same time and in similar ways. Collective trauma often affects the society at multiple levels: from micro (individual) to mezzo (local community) to macro (culture and the society at large). These multilevel traumas are inevitably passed on to subsequent generations and thus become transgenerational and historical. Applying a transdisciplinary framework, this study serves as a demonstration of historical traumas in Anatolia. The theoretical arguments of this research shed light and provide interpretation for what is going on in Turkey today and historically amongst Turks, Kurds, and Armenians. Furthermore, this research reveals epistemologies of ignorance in Turkey as keeping the lid on transgenerational experiences of trauma and preventing appropriate healing modalities. The epistemology of ignorance intends to keep information away from people, and in Turkey's case, it is currently tied to the maintenance of the Turkish National identity. In other words, transgenerational trauma has created an epistemology of ignorance, whereby certain historical realities have been consciously and unconsciously suppressed, and this, in turn, has deepened the trauma by not acknowledging it or beginning to address it.