1. Kurds of Modern Turkey: Migration, Neoliberalism and Exclusion in Turkish Society
- Author:
- Alper Kaliber
- Publication Date:
- 07-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
- Institution:
- Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
- Abstract:
- Being a national security issue since the establishment of Turkish Republic in 1923, the Kurdish question has several and deep rooted connotations for politics and society in Turkey. Even if it was excessively securitized and long classified as a national taboo by the Turkish state, the Kurdish question has increasingly occupied a central status in Turkish politics since the 1980s. As a consequence of excessive securitization, academic or otherwise any work problematizing the official state line was subjected to silencing, marginalization or even ban. The intellectuals, academics, civil society activists demanding recognition of a separate Kurdish identity and cultural/collective rights of the Kurds were often blamed as being traitors and prosecuted and punished in some cases. In the 1980s and 1990s researching and publishing on the Kurdish question amounted to assuming grave risks or confronting fierce public reaction for researchers. Thus, there was an acute lack of academic research concerning the most important issue of Turkish politics.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Turkey and Kurdistan