Suchergebnisse

Feminist scholars have documented with reference to multiple empirical contexts that feminist claims within nationalist movements are often side‐lined, constructed as 'inauthentic' and frequently discredited for imitating supposedly western notions of gender‐based equality. Despite these historical precedents, some feminist scholars have pointed to the positive aspects of nationalist movements, which frequently open up spaces for gender‐based claims. Our research is based on the recognition that we cannot discuss and evaluate the fraught relationship in the abstract but that we need to look at the specific historical and empirical contexts and articulations of nationalism and feminism. The specific case study we draw from is the relationship between the Kurdish women's movement and the wider Kurdish political movement in Turkey. We are exploring the ways that the Kurdish movement in Turkey has politicised Kurdish women's rights activists and examine how Kurdish women activists have reacted to patriarchal tendencies within the Kurdish movement.

Our paper engages with the complex relationship between national liberation and women's rights movements as an instance to recognise the significance of intersectional political struggles and claims. In our specific case study, we critically explore attempts by political activists and elected representatives of the Kurdish political movement in the Middle East and its diasporas to challenge patriarchal and masculinist ideology and practices. Our work aims to recognise the recent commitment to gender equality, while complicating the often simplistic glorification of women's roles within the Kurdish political movement in the context of Turkey but also northern Syria, both ideologically inspired by the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), and particularly by the writings of its founder Abdullah Öcalan. Based on two years of multi-sited fieldwork in Diyarbakir, Istanbul, Berlin and London, our collaborative paper sheds light on the dialectic processes through which the Kurdish political movement is engaging in the translation of its political principles of democratic confederalism and gender equality.

Despite the recent outbreak of violence and conflict, peace continues to be high on the agenda of the Kurdish political movement and many progressive Turkish intellectuals and activists. Based on qualitative research we conducted in Diyarbakır, Istanbul, London, and Berlin in 2015–16, we show that Kurdish activists have struggled to make the eradication of gender-based inequalities and violence central to the wider Kurdish peace movement, while Turkish women's rights activists have increasingly recognized that the war against the Kurds, "like a blanket," often papers over gender injustices. Both Kurdish and Turkish activists stress the necessity of understanding that a just and sustainable peace must include gender equality and that gender justice cannot be achieved in times of war. Thus feminist convergences in Kurdish and Turkish activism present peace and women's rights as inseparable and generate the potential to challenge nationalist state power and the militarization of society.

The prominence of Kurdish women in Rojava (western Kurdistan/northern Syria) inspired us initially to understand the historical role of women in the Kurdish political movement. We were also interested in the role of Kurdish women in challenging traditional patriarchal society and rules. As part of this wider project, we wanted to hear the thoughts of Gültan Kışanak, the female co-mayor of Diyarbakır, the largest Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey. She has been a long-term activist in the Kurdish women's movement in addition to being a former MP for the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). Ms Kişanak was imprisoned as a student after the military coup in 1980, and as a woman's rights activist and Kurdish politician has witnessed the violent aftermath of previous coups as well as the radically changing political landscape over the past decades. Given the recent developments in Turkey, we were also eager to enquire about the recent failed coup, particularly in relation to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict, prospects for peace and gendered implications of recent developments.