Ethno‐political subordination and patient dissatisfaction: The Kurdish case inHakkâriduring the AKP period in Turkey, 2003–2013

Abstract

This article revolves around a puzzle: the persistence of patient dissatisfaction with the health services as a mass phenomenon in a Kurdish province, Hakkâri, through the 2000s, despite the striking and tangible improvements enacted by the Turkish state. This is, I argue, related to the deeply entrenched conviction on the part of Hakkârians that their lives count for little in the eyes of the Turkish state. Rooted in the history of state‐Kurds relations, this conviction manifests itself in Hakkârians' deep distrust of the very basis of health services received, like the skills and intentions of health staff, causing many Hakkârians to underestimate service improvement. Thus, it is concluded, patient satisfaction among an ethnically subordinated group with health services provided by a dominant ethnic group may be unavoidably informed and perhaps overwhelmingly determined by an awareness of the wider ethno‐power context and its history, irrespective, that is, of material improvements.