Nationhood as a social representation: Making sense of the Kurdish opening in Turkey.

Abstract

Nationhood is a dynamic and complex phenomenon, influenced by both top-down political and bottom-up social processes. Social representations theory allows us to address the in-between space where nationhood can be conceptualized as a shared political psychological phenomenon. In this study, the authors explore various constructions of Turkish nationhood in relation to the Kurdish issue of Turkey. Turkey’s conflict with Kurds has been perceived from different identity or ideological positions. These perceptions are useful in tracking the dynamic constructions of Turkish nationhood. The Kurdish opening, introduced by the government in Turkey, was an official process of tackling the country’s most important internal conflict through a series of reforms and policies. To understand the relationship between representations of nationhood and the way the Kurdish opening was received, 17 semistructured interviews were carried out in Turkey (in Istanbul, Ankara and Antakya) between March and August 2011. The findings highlight three main themes: Turkish issue, cultural dissonance, and narrative empathy. The authors emphasize the need to conceptualize nationhood as a consensually elaborated and shared social representation.

Conflict narratives, action frames, and engagement in reconciliation efforts among community activists in Northern Ireland.

“…I defined a theme as a pattern of meaning and/or content (Willig, 2013). I determined themes to be prevalent in a transcript, and across a sample, based on their frequency and extensiveness, and their ability to answer to the research questions (Kışlıoğlu & Cohrs, 2018). Themes, developed through the process described below, included both manifest meanings directly stated by participants, and latent meanings identified at an interpretative level (Braun & Clarke, 2006).…”

Counternarratives of Power in Kurds

“…Most importantly, Turkishness further racialized Kurds (Yeğen, 1996;Gunes, 2020;Bilali, 2014) through oppression. The oppressive mechanisms involved (but were not limited to) imposing a cultural deficit perspective (Yosso, 2005) and criminalizing Kurdish language and identity (Kışlıoğlu & Cohrs, 2018;Zeydanlıoğlu, 2014), terrorizing Kurdish resistance against Turkish coloniality and oppression (Burç, 2022), confiscating Kurds' living areas and socio-economic resources (Yadirgi, 2017) and promoting and rewarding hate speech and acts against Kurds. Altogether, the hegemonic narratives about Kurds as "villagers", "occupiers", "terrorists", "disbelievers" came through the application of these oppressive strategies (e.g., Tutkal, 2022).…”

Construing Reconciliation – Lay People Definitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Qualitative Approach

“…This implies that the perception of reconciliation must differ as well, which can easily be an obstacle to its achievement. In recent years, lay people perceptions of the conflict and peace have started to be investigated (Kişlioğlu & Cohrs, 2018;Uluğ & Cohrs, 2016;Uluğ et al, 2017). Although it is considered that understanding of the conflict is a mirror image of the society, little attention has been given by scholars to explore and understand lay people's perceptions and interpretations of conflict resolution and peace building processes (Uluğ et al, 2017).…”