When Conflict Traumas Fragment: Investigating the Sociopsychological Roots of Turkey’s Intractable Conflict

Abstract

This article investigates the historical processes contributing towards the specific development of Turkey after the 1920s that in turn established the main contours of Turkey's conflict with the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê (PKK). It first argues that the traumatic conflict memories of the Turkish leadership influenced its individual-level patterns of actions. These memories were used by the leadership to consolidate its imagined national agency in Turkey. The leadership perceived the traditional-conservative groups as ontological insecurity sources, jeopardizing this agency. It second claims that Turkey's military apparatus is designed to silence these ontological insecurity sources. Finally, it claims these developments informed the ways in which the PKK's narratives of rebellion were constructed. Empirically, it problematizes the impact of the Ottoman Empire's collapse on the Turkish elites. Then, through a discourse analysis of elites' speeches and legal documents, it traces their anxieties to the Ottoman Empire's traumatic end. This article contributes to the trauma literature on ontological security and the emotions literature in International Relations in two ways. It first explores the particular national context in which traumatic memories are shaped and in turn articulated through emotional performances. Secondly, it shows the interplay between sociopsychological processes of security and agency making.

Studying Emotions in Security and Diplomacy: Where We Are Now and Challenges Ahead

“…The theme of and interplay between sociopsychological processes of insecurity and agency making are brought to bear in Umut Can Adisonmez's contribution to this special issue which also explored the particular national context in which traumatic memories are shaped and how these are articulated through emotional performances. Focusing on Turkey's fraught relationship with the Kurds (which dates back to the late Ottoman Empire times), Adisonmez () argued that this relationship evolved into an intergroup conflict as a consequence of Turkish oppressive policies. The decades‐long PKK insurgency has seen over 50,000 people lose their lives which has, in turn, deeply impacted upon the Turkish state and its citizens alike.…”

“…Emotions play an important role in the success or otherwise of security discourses and diplomatic practices. They can lead to a redirection of foreign policies (as exemplified by the contributions of Baker, ; Eberle & Daniel, ; Keys & Yorke, ), investments in morally questionable practices conducted in the name of security such as torture or drone warfare (Edney‐Browne, ; Houck et al, ), and conflicts and wars (see Adisonmez, ; Ariely, ). The boundary drawn between the assumed self and the imagined other is so embedded in emotional labor and so engrained in politics and social and economic relations that even challenging these narratives becomes politically unimaginable (Bilgic et al, ).…”

“…Second, our contributors have shown that when emotions are collectively felt and expressed, they can bring about an elusive notion of security and stability in the manner in which “the self” is defined in contrast to an/“the other.” This stability is, of course, open to challenges. However, continual emotional appeals of security discourses enable political actors to reproduce this sense of stability (see Adisonmez, ; also see Ariely, ; Bilgic et al, ; Eberle & Daniel, ). At the same time, emotions offer a way of cracking this seemingly insurmountable challenge.…”

“…In the politics of security and diplomacy, such agency can be instrumental to stimulate new ways of thinking and practicing diplomacy and security. Moreover, studying and understanding security affectively reveals harm that goes unnoticed in dominant security narratives, including those presented as “ethical” (Adisonmez, ; Bilgic et al, ; Edney‐Browne, ). These contributions bring the overlooked and emotional dimension of harm into both analytical and political view and explore how harm deeply suspends even banal, daily practices.…”

“…This is useful and important for us to think about and analyze how political actors (e.g., in our contemporary political context, far‐right populist parties) generate and capitalize upon emotions about the “past”—which is now either long gone or did not ever exist—with the promise that the future of “the self” is in this past that is loved, missed, and longed for (Ariely, ; Hall & Ross, ; van Hoef & O'Connor, ). Similarly, fears and anxieties about the past can be instrumentalized for shaping the present and future of the collective self (Adisonmez, ; Eberle & Daniel, ) and what is legitimate to do in order to secure “the self” (Houck et al, ). In both cases, political actors empower themselves by interrupting the linear time of the imagined “self” and by invoking emotions about the past and calling for a reimagination of that same, mythologized past to shape a (presumed) better future.…”