When Öcalan met Bookchin: The Kurdish Freedom Movement and the Political Theory of Democratic Confederalism

Gerber, Damian; Brincat, Shannon

doi:10.1080/14650045.2018.1508016

Cited by 20 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…These structures, according to Gerber and Brincat (2018, p. 14), are put in place due to the belief that the best form of social organisation is through democratic amateurism, as compared to bureaucratic specialisation. Matters that were seen as apolitical have become politicised.…”

Section: Rojava: a Zop?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…175–178). Higher academies have also been established, which focus on a range of subjects that are often combined with “intense self-criticism on overcoming Eurocentrism and the colonial mindset, of uncovering local and Middle Eastern knowledge, and speculating on the question of what type of society should be built” (Gerber & Brincat, 2018, p. 15).…”

Section: Rojava: a Zop?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When responding to the question of what form of solidarity the Rojava project needs, a common response from people in Rojava is to “build a strong revolutionary movement in your own country” (Knapp et al, 2016, p. 256). Gerber and Brincat (2018) have called this a reimagining of space and place, where “‘space’ [is] rooted in concepts such as internationalist solidarity, rather than the strictly geographic ‘places’ which form the boundaries of state sovereignty” (p. 7). This allows for a two-way, reciprocal relationship.…”

Section: Rojava: a Zop?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring Peace in the Midst of War: Rojava as a Zone of Peace?

Nordhag

2020

Journal of Peacebuilding & Development

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War and peace are often depicted as mutually exclusive phenomena; where there is violent conflict, peace is absent. This assumption is problematic because it obscures cases where groups, networks, or communities create peaceful situations for themselves in the midst of, or in close proximity to, war. This article focuses on Rojava, a predominantly Syrian Kurdish area in northern Syria. Since the start of the Syrian war, Rojava was for a long time an island of relative security in an otherwise violent context. This article explores Rojava between 2011 and 2014 through theories and empirical examples of zones of peace where local communities in violent conflicts create spaces that are off limits to violence. The article concludes that because violence is not prohibited in Rojava, it cannot be considered a peace zone. Yet the case shows that peacebuilding is possible beyond minimising effects of violence even during a violent conflict.

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Section: Rojava: a Zop?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Rojava: a Zop?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Rojava: a Zop?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring Peace in the Midst of War: Rojava as a Zone of Peace?

Nordhag

2020

Journal of Peacebuilding & Development

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“…In doing so, the current contributions offer a wider understanding of the formation, evolution, and contradictions of AANES, the challenges it faces and what these local developments mean for a world in crisis. Gerber and Brincat (2018) explore the theoretical underpinnings of 'Democratic Confederalism' in the work of Murray Bookchin's political theory. They suggest that Bookchin's idea of the co-constitution of political and gender hierarchies and their over-determination of the domination of human over non-human nature inspired Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to develop the idea of Democratic Confederalism.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Anarchy and Capital? The Geopolitics of the Rojava Revolution in Syria

Hoffmann

Matin

2021

Geopolitics

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The drylands of the Middle East have been long seen not only as unfavourable to life, but also and relatedly, socio-politically fragile. Fraught with myths of eternal 'ethnic', 'sectarian', or 'resource conflict', the chronic political instability of the Middle East from Afghanistan and Yemen to Iraq and Syria has been often seen as intrinsic to a scarce 'nature', a scorched earth, tendentially collapsing into brute violence which in its spectacular extreme has been exercised by the so-called 'Islamic State' (IS).However, two decades into the new millennium, the crisis-ridden 'nature' of the Middle East is arguably now globalised. What we are facing now is a threefold planetary crisis in the human political world order, the nonhuman ecosystem, and crucially in the relationship between the two. A financialised and increasingly automatised and post-human high-tech world economy still depends overwhelmingly on extractivism and the sourcing, processing, and the excessive release of heat from the burning of hydrocarbons. This environmental crisis, is, paradoxically, bound up with infinite financialised growth. The constant increase of capital, led by central banks, simultaneously fuels, and compels a political economy of debt. Automatised 'just in time' production accelerates the circulation of capital and matter to a pace where its consequences cannot be captured by the 'national' developmental ambitions of a given society anymore. The unintended, yet not entirely unpredictable socio-ecological contradictions, thus, combine with geopolitical crises, far beyond the Middle East, around the globe, while 'green growth' and conservation capitalism offer merely shallow fig leaves to the impending crisis. Simultaneously, the liberal political legitimacy in the Western heartland is challenged by the rise of various forms of populist movements and authoritarian neoliberal regimes.This complex of multiple and interrelated crises, or, as Marx put it, the 'metabolic rift' in the form of catastrophic climatic change has been subjected to numerous debates. And yet, few studies have investigated it this within concrete local settings. Even fewer have done so with a view to the potential or CONTACT Clemens Hoffmann

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“… 6. See Bookchin (1982, 1992). For a comparison between the Movement’s contemporary ideology and Bookchin’s teachings, see also Gerber and Brincat (2018) and Muhammad (2018). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Assembling community economies

Turker

Murphy

2019

Progress in Human Geography

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This article advances a framework for the study of community economies as assemblages constituted and shaped by three primary dynamics: relations, resources and constraints, and processes of stabilization and destabilization. Drawing on diverse and community economies scholarship, assemblage theory and actor-network theory, we develop a framework that will contribute significantly to understandings of the emergence of community economies and the strategies that make them more resilient and sustainable. The conceptual framework is illustrated through a case study from Turkey’s Kurdish region – a women’s cooperative that remained resilient in the face of armed conflict and political violence.

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When Öcalan met Bookchin: The Kurdish Freedom Movement and the Political Theory of Democratic Confederalism

Cited by 20 publications

References 8 publications

Exploring Peace in the Midst of War: Rojava as a Zone of Peace?

Exploring Peace in the Midst of War: Rojava as a Zone of Peace?

Beyond Anarchy and Capital? The Geopolitics of the Rojava Revolution in Syria

Assembling community economies

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