The racialization of Kurdish identity in Turkey

Abstract

Until the 1990s, the Kurdish issue in Turkey largely involved the Turkish state, an ethnic group and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The 2000s witnessed community-level clashes between Kurds and Turks, signalling the Turkish population's rise as an actor in the issue. This paper makes two claims. First, communal clashes indicate that Kurdish identity is not an ethnic identity alone, but is experiencing a racialization process, based on four indicators: emphasis on physical characteristics in the definitions of Kurds; linking Kurdish identity with the absence of certain moral characteristics; the increasing assignment, rather than self-assertion, of Kurdish identity; and discourses of racial extinction. Second, the racialization of Kurdish identity corresponds to historical change in conceptions of diversity. Racialization became possible after a distinct Kurdish identity was recognized but normatively unwelcomed.

Keywords:

• racialization
• race
• ethnicity
• Kurds
• Turkey
• Kurdish issue

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ayşe Betül Çelik, Nina Ergin, Douglas Hartmann, Melissa Weiner and the anonymous referees of the journal for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Murat Ergin

MURAT ERGIN is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Koç University.