Ozlem Goner - Turkish National Identity and Its Outsiders: Memories of State Violence in Dersim

Focusing on Turkey and the municipality of Dersima region that has historically combined different outsider identities, including Armenian, Kurdish, and Alevi identitiesthe author explores the remembering, transformation, and mobilisation of everyday relations of power and the manner in which relationships with the state shape both outsider identities and the conception of the nation itself.

Together with a discussion of the recent decade in which the history, identity, and nature of Dersim have been central to various social and political organizations, the author concentrates on three defining periods of state-outsider relationshipsthe massacre and the following displacements in Dersim known as 1938; the growth of capitalism in Turkey and the Leftist movements in Dersim between World War II and the coup dtat of 1980; and the rise of the PKK and the state of exception in Dersim in the 1990sto show how outsiders came to be defined as exceptions to the law and how they were managed in different periods.

Drawing on archival methods, field research, in-depth and multiple-session interviews, and focus groups with three consecutive generations, this book offers a historical understanding of relationships of power and struggle as they are actualized and challenged at particular localities and shaped through the making of outsiderness. As such, it will be of interest to scholars of sociology, anthropology, and political science, as well as historians.

Ozlem Goner is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York (CUNY). She earned degrees in Political Science and Sociology from Bogazici University, Turkey and her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research interests focus on political sociology, memory, race and ethnicity, social movements, sociology of place and environment, qualitative methods, and classical, post-structural, postcolonial, and feminist theory. Her work on memory and historicity; neoliberalism, environment, and identity; and outsider identities in Turkey has been published in academic journals and edited volumes.

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Turkish National Identity and Its Outsiders
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First published 2017
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2017 Ozlem Goner

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ISBN: 978-1-138-20715-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-46297-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra

To all those who opened up their stories, homes, and lives

)

This book is revised from my dissertation completed at the Sociology Department of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I am grateful for the invaluable support and guidance of my advisor and committee members. I cannot thank Joya Misra enough for her intellectual wisdom and her unceasing support through the many challenges during the stages of research and writing. Agustin Lao-Montes and Barbara Cruikshank offered many stimulating discussions about the complexities of power, politics, and subject, which have dramatically influenced this work. The analytical and methodological rigor of Donald Tomaskovic-Devey and Robert Zussman have put my feet on the ground. Of course, the remaining shortcomings in the book are mine alone. The Routledge team improved the manuscript tremendously. Many thanks to Neil Jordan, Shannon Kneis, Francesca Monaco from Codemantra, as well as the anonymous reviewers and the copy-edit team.

My yearlong fieldwork in Dersim was made possible by the Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner Gren Foundation. I also thank the Foundation for their Engaged Anthropology Grant, making it possible for me to revisit Dersim and share my perspective with my narrators in 2013. A PSC CUNY grant enabled the studying of the laws of exception in Turkey.

I wish to extend my appreciation to all the professors, students, and the staff at the University of Massachusetts and the CUNY College of Staten Island. I recognize here in particular those whose teachings and support enabled the completion of my dissertation, the foundation of this book. They are, in alphabetical order, Vanessa Adel Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Joyce Avrech Berkman, Swati Birla, Sofia Checa, Geert Dhondt, Ilgn Erdem, Shaun Lamory, Erika Marquez, Philip Melizzo, Yasser Munif Steven Resnick, Ian Seda, Matthew Spurlock Millie Thayer, Elsa Wiehe, and Kathryn Worley. My colleagues at the College of Staten Island have also been very supportive of this book. I thank Leigh Binford and Jean Halley in particular for their continuing support and encouragement.

I dedicate this book to all my narrators in Dersim who bravely shared their stories and lives. They not only enabled this book but provided me with new homes, friends, and family. My uncle Zeki and his wife Glcan shared their home. The political and cultural institutions and foundations were very generous in welcoming me. I thank all the officials and the staff at the Dersim Municipal Government, especially the mayor at the time Edibe ahin, her advisor Grkan Kahraman, and the officials and the members of the Peace and Democray Party (BDP, later became HDP), Labor Party (EMEP), Democratic Federation of People (DHF), and Dersim Cultural Foundation.