In-between military and civilian: ongoing conflict, disability, and masculinity

ABSTRACT

This article deals with the construction of militarised masculinity of disabled veterans in the interplay of official identity and embodied everyday experience in the context of an ongoing internal armed conflict. It explores a militarised masculinity with shifting meanings and interpretations in response to different phases of the ongoing Kurdish conflict in Turkey, with reference to the everyday, disability, and vulnerability, complicating the boundaries between making and unmaking of militarised masculinity. Drawing on empirical data, this article focuses on two key historical moments to explain the shifting meanings of gendered militarisation – the Kurdish peace process between 2009–2015 and the aftermath of the 15th July 2016 coup attempt. Both moments are significant to explore the militarised masculinity of the disabled veterans as they both appear in veterans’ narratives as moments of loss of masculine privilege, reflecting their shifting relations with the state and broader society. This article explores how instability caused by the transformation of official military identity leads disabled veterans to renegotiate the boundaries along the gender and military-civilian divides in their efforts to reclaim their lost masculine privileges. It also demonstrates how proximity to a particular form of violence becomes significant in reclaiming distinctiveness of their veteran identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Militarised masculinity
• disabled veterans
• armed conflict
• conscription
• Kurdish conflict

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I used pseudonyms and left out any distinguishing information to protect anonymity.

2 The AKP-initiated Kurdish Opening Kurdish Opening in 2009 was a project of reforms to expand political and cultural rights of the Kurds although it quickly turned into a nationalist ‘brotherhood’ project (Casier, Jongerden, & Walker, 2013). It was followed by more structured peace negotiations between 2013–2015, but June 2015 elections marked the end of the peace negotiations and escalation of conflict and violence.

3 I would like to thank the reviewer who pointed this out in their report.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu

Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu completed her MA in Gender Studies at Central European University and her PhD in Sociology at the University of Sussex (UK) with her thesis entitled Politics of the Rehabilitation of Disabled Veterans: Masculinity, the Body and Militarism in Turkey. She has published works focusing on masculinities, disability, militarism, and nationalism. She is the editor of a book in Turkish entitled Erkek Millet, Asker Millet: Türkiye’de Militarizm, Milliyetçilik, Erkek(lik)ler [Militarism, Nationalism, and Men/Masculinities in Turkey] (2013, İletişim Publishing). She is one of the founding members of the Initiative for Critical Studies of Masculinities (ICSM), based in Turkey, and a member of the editorial board of a peer-reviewed bilingual journal, Masculinities: A Journal of Culture and Society. She was the coordinator of a project, entitled Educational Manual on Gender Based Violence with a Critical Masculinity Studies Perspective, funded by Swedish Consulate General in İstanbul. She is currently a faculty member in the Core Program at Kadir Has University.