Political violence, fear and pain: The formation of Kurdishness in Turke

The fundamental question of this thesis is to understand political violence, the politics of fear and the Kurdish experience of pain in their atrocious immediacy in Turkey. It traces the physical and psychological impacts of the war between the state and the PKK in the last three decades, predominantly in the 1990s in the Kurdish region in Turkey. This thesis suggests that political violence, fear and pain have transpired as prevalent facets of contemporary Kurdish history. Consequently, I pose questions about gendered experiences of state violence, the state's instrumentalization of violence and the ensuing culture of fear, pain, incarceration, corporeal punishment and suffering through an analysis of personal life stories, narratives, testimonies and memories of Kurdish subjects.;This thesis documents how the overwhelming sense of fear of the state, experiences of emotional and physical pain, and corporeal punishment have constituted 'Kurdishness' as a state of being and as ''the other" in Turkey. Through a genealogical investigation of Kurdish struggle in Turkey, it also addresses the question of continuity of state violence and claims that political violence, fear and pain have created a sphere of collective suffering and trauma in the Kurdish community. It provides analyses of life stories and interviews conducted with survivors, families of victims, former-prisoners, members of the PKK and ordinary people who do not attach themselves to the PKK and have dwelt in the conflict zones for many years in the Kurdish region.;This thesis documents occurrences of various forms of protracted state violence and fear not only as personal and differential markers experienced by individuals, but also as communally-felt phenomena which have engendered collective suffering. It illustrates how stories of violence, fear and pain are institutionalized in personal narratives and discourses. Furthermore, it seeks to document how these experiences move beyond the personal to be incorporated into wider discourses of communities through three narrative genres: life stories, laments and songs of grief. I assert that these traumatic experiences have marked the social body, produced a prevailing narrative of Kurdishness and reconstructed Kurdish identity and social memory. The thesis illustrates how these phenomena operate in the process of the making of world(s) and how they have embodied the state of 'Kurdishness' and manufactured the discourse of the "suffering Kurdish nation" in the contemporary period.;Key word(s): Political violence, state, state violence, fear, pain, suffering, memory, torture, incarceration, Kurds, Kurdishness, Turkey.