Kurdish Narratives of Conflict: the Politics of the Kurdish Question in Turkish Cinema

Abstract

Although there has been a considerable amount of research on the Kurdish Question in general, so far, little attention has been given to the relationship between the Kurdish Question and its depiction and constitution in film. The study of films offers insights into how aesthetics inform, determine, enable, and naturalize specific interpretations and actions. This article sees films as narratives and will employ a narrative analysis method that emphasizes the role of setting, characterization, and emplotment as central pillars of any story to examine how four Turkish-Kurdish films understand and represent the Kurdish Question, self and other, and the implications of this representation. The analysis of the films not only reflects on a distinct Kurdish perspective on the matter, but also illustrates the diversity of interpretations and dis­courses and, as such, broadens the scope of ideas for possible behaviour and solutions to the old conflict.

Keywords:

• Turkey
• Kurds
• Kurdish cinema
• Kurdish questions
• conflict
• movies
• film

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 The PKK, which originates in the so-called revolutionary left in Turkey during the 1970s and was a mass movement during the 1990s, is not only a political party representing Kurdish issues especially in Turkey but also an influential secular movement within the Middle East. Besides, PKK is linked to a guerrilla movement and itself highly debated when it comes to the organizations’ aims or history. Related to this ambiguity PKK is characterized as a terrorist organization partly on an international level, e.g. by the USA, and explicitly by the Turkish state. Following the capture of Abdullah Öcalan in 1999 the party underwent significant changes during the following years. As part of this process its aim to fight for an independent Kurdish state receded into the background in favour of a critical attitude towards the Turkish form of democracy. Besides this former PKK structures influence the development of the so-called KCK, the Association of Communities in Kurdistan, which as a movement addresses the Kurdish struggle for a democratic ruling and self-determination in a more regional sense. With the rise of the Democratic People’s Party the PKK lost its role of being the leading political representative of Kurds in Turkey in the early 2000s. (Gurses 2020: 308–309; Yilmaz 2018: 2).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura S.T. Rehbein

Laura S.T. Rehbein is a political scientist focusing on issues of representation, the politics of popular culture, and social movements. She works as an analyst and crisis manager in the field of travel security at EXOP Mobility Risk Management in Konstanz, Germany.

Daniel Beck

Daniel Beck is a research fellow and lecturer at the chair of International Relations, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany. His research focus is on political humour, post-structuralist approaches and visuality. His most recent publication, titled ‘Just a bit of fun: the camouflaging and defending functions of humour in recruitment videos of the British and Swedish armed forces’, was published in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

Morgane Desoutter

Morgane Desoutter is a research fellow and lecturer at the Chair for International Relations, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany and at the Swiss Distance University Institute. Her research focus lies on the nexus of Popular Culture and World Politics and on Critical, Feminist and Poststructuralist Theories of International Relations.

Tina Rosner-Merker

Tina Rosner-Merker works as a research assistant at the chair of International Relations at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany. She holds an M.A. degree in social sciences and was a visiting scholar at the University of Tartu, Estland, in 2021. Her research focuses on Derecognition of Statehood and secession.

Alexander Spencer

Alexander Spencer holds the Chair of International Relations at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany. His research focuses on narratives, (pop-) culture and conflict and has been published in a number of journals including European Journal of International Relations; Journal of European Public Policy, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Peace and Change; Security Dialogue and International Studies Perspectives.