Kurdish Issue in Turkey

Joost Jongerden is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology of Development, Wageningen University, the Netherlands. His research interests include; the sociology of space and place, the socio-spatial dimensions of protest and violent conflict. Zeynep Gambetti is Associate Professor of political theory at Boğazici University. Her research interests include; collective action, ethics, and public space. She co-edited Rhetorics of Insecurity: Belonging and Violence in the Neoliberal Era (2013), and the special issue of The Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies on the spatial dimensions of the Kurdish question in Turkey.

• Introduction: The spatial (re)production of the Kurdish issue: multiple and contradicting trajectories - Zeynep Gambetti and Joost Jongerden PART I: MAKING AND REMAKING THE SOUTHEAST 1 Space, state-making and contentious Kurdish politics in the East of Turkey: the case of Eastern Meetings, 1967 - Azad Gündoğan 2 Diyarbakır’s ‘Witness-sites’ and Discourses on ‘the Kurdish Question’ in Turkey - Eray Çaylı 3 What is hidden beneath the wall surrounding the Mor Gabriel Monastery? Consolidating borders between self and other, self and the state - Zerrin Özlem Biner 4 An Ethnographic Account of the Compulsory Public Service of Doctors in Hakkari: The Limits of the JDP’s Assimilation Strategy and the Production of Space - İlker Cörüt 5 Beyond Kurdistan? The Mesopotamia Social Forum and the appropriation and re-imagination of Mesopotamia by the Kurdish movement - Marlies Casier PART II: KURDISH STRUGGLES IN URBAN SPACES 6 Generational Differences in Political Mobilization among Kurdish Forced Migrants: The Case of Istanbul’s Kanarya Mahallesi - Gülay Kılıçaslan 7 Space, Capitalism and Kurdish Migrants in Turkey: An Analysis of Kadifekale’s Transformation in Izmir - Neslihan Demirtaş-Milz and Cenk Saraçoğlu 8 Rescaled localities and redefined class relations: neoliberal experience in south-east Turkey - Ayşe Seda Yüksel 9 Politics of Privacy: Forced Migration and the Spatial Struggle of the Kurdish Youth in Adana - Haydar Darıcı 10 Ethnicity, Social Tensions and Production of Space in Forced Migration Neighbourhoods of Mersin - Ali Ekber Doğan and Bediz Yılmaz PART III: SPACES OF SEASONAL MIGRATION 11 Embodiment of Space and Labor: Kurdish Migrant Workers in Turkish Agriculture - Deniz Duruiz 12 The Transformation of the Private Home of Kurdish Seasonal Workers - İclal Ayse Küçükkırca

It is also an essential cross-cultural reference for those working on nationalism, ethinicity, and space and place. In this sense, Gambetti and Jongerden's statements are crucial in underscoring that a focus on space is not merely "a scholastic excercise," but an urgently needed component of "resolution efforts" not just in Turkey, but in other parts of the world that have witnessed and endured similar ethnic tensions and conflicts.- Senem Kaptan, Rutgers University