Kurdish Youth Research Articles

The spirit of the book cafe: Kurdish-language activism and the contested values of youth and culture in Turkey

ABSTRACT This article deploys a semiotic anthropological analysis of value to understand the recent emergence and spread of the Kurdish book cafe, or pirtûk kafe, using it as a window into the changing state of Kurdish language-activism and Kurdish youth culture in Turkey. Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with cafe owners, operators, and patrons, the article offers both an overview of the pirtûk kafe in contemporary Turkey and an analysis of its role in promoting Kurdish culture and the use of the Kurdish language among the country’s youth.

Collective resilience in diaspora groups: a study of Kurdish youth in Canada and Sweden

ABSTRACT For decades, oppressive state policies have forced some Kurds to leave Turkey and seek refuge in Western countries, including Sweden and Canada. We conducted semi-structured interviews with Kurdish youth living in Canada and Sweden (N = 15) to explore the role of identity-related grievances in their involvement in the Kurdish movement, a political movement comprised of an array of actors including an armed group, political parties, and civil society organizations. By implementing the Building Resilience Against Violent Extremism (BRAVE) tool, we investigated their collective resilience against calls for violence, extremist views, and challenges caused by repression. Findings indicated that the major factors in their involvement were the restrictions on their language, culture, and identity; the discrimination and injustices against them and their community; the traumatic events that they experienced or witnessed; and the involvement of their family and community members in the movement. The overall resilience scores of the participants were high (M = 58.67 out of a potential 14–70), but they scored lower when their relationship with Turkish authorities is considered (M = 53.13; SD = 5.65) than with their host countries after resettlement (M = 58. 67; SD = 6.25).

Youth Programming through Language

This research is a critical and practical study. In this context, we try to discuss some of Dldar’s poems, which can be read within the framework of the neurolinguistics program to influence Kurdish youth. The research material consists of some of the poetic texts by Dldar that we consider to be appropriate examples for the subject that we want to discuss, and this is the reason that led us to have this title for the research. In this research, we endeavor to find the relationship between language and mind in the poems. The poems appear as a kind of advice in which the poet wants to have influence on Kurdish youth during the time they were written and even later, and this is a kind of programing which is considered as the main task of neurolinguistics program. From now on, this subject will be further clarified through the introduction of the concepts and the terms. This research consists of two sections; the first section is about (neurolinguistics in terms of concepts and terms). This section clarifies language, poetic language, concepts and the term of neurolinguistics as a new science in the field of linguistics. The second section entitled (Youth Programing Through Neurolinguistics-Dldar Poems as Examples) analyses all the poetic samples by the great Kurdish poet that we consider to have a kind of programing Kurdish youth through using a special poetic language, this comprises the core of our research. The research concludes with the results and the list of references, the abstract of the research is written in English and Arabic as well.

Youth attitudes towards sexual harassment in the Kurdistani society (Erbil city as a sample)

Abstract Sexual harassment is one of the negative social phenomena that our Kurdish society has to deal with. In this study, sexual harassment is defined as any act or speech of an unwelcome sexual nature issued by a man that violates a woman's body, privacy, or feelings, making her feel insecure or respected. or contentment. Given that youth are the mainstay on which societies rely for development, progress, and development, the study attempts to shed light on the trends of this segment toward the phenomenon of harassment, given the high prevalence of this phenomenon. 1-What are young people's attitudes toward the concept of sexual harassment in Kurdistan society? 2-Where are the most prominent sites of harassment from the perspective of young people? 3-What are young people's attitudes toward methods and mechanisms for dealing with the phenomenon of harassment? 4-Does the woman have anything to do with the harassment she is subjected to from young people? 5-What are the causes of such a phenomenon, as seen through the eyes of Kurdish youth? 6-What are the sources for identifying sexual harassment from the perspective of young people? 7-Does there appear to be statistically significant differences? The method used in this study is (Social and Comparative Survey Methodology), the study sample (class random), and one of the means of data collection is (the questionnaire). In Kurdish society, it is confirmed that social media such as the Internet and phones are the most prominent places for harassment to occur, and the study confirmed that the best way to deal with harassment is to contact the police and file a lawsuit. Regarding the causes of this phenomenon, it was found from the results of the field study that the majority of the sample confirm that the primary reason for harassment is linked to social reasons linked to male authority in society, as well as educational reasons linked Concerning the comparison of young people's attitudes toward the issue of harassment based on the variables of the study, the results of the field study revealed that there were no significant, statistically significant differences between the sample members based on the variables (gender, marital status, and monthly income). On the other hand, there were significant, statistically significant differences in attitudes toward sexual harassment among the sample members based on the variables (age, educational level, place of residence, and profession).

Kurdish students’ perceptions of stigma and their destigmatization strategies in urban contexts in Turkey

ABSTRACT Contemporary literature has chiefly studied the Kurdish issue from a macro-political perspective. In this paper, we focus on ordinary Kurdish youth’s everyday responses to stigma and discrimination from the majority Turkish group and connect them to the macro-political context. Drawing on 29 qualitative in-depth interviews with Kurdish students in Izmir, we document that this group seeks to negotiate their belonging in the face of their characterizations as backward, terrorist, and disloyal. The findings suggest that these youth respond to stigmas, depending on contextual dynamics, by specific destigmatization strategies such as confronting, managing the self, assuming individual responsibility, and avoiding. We argue that ongoing armed conflict stigmatizes Kurds as separatists, and invisible markers between Kurds and Turks make hiding ethnicity the primary destigmatization strategy for Kurds.

Marriage and Population Growth Anthropological Comparative Study in Kirkuk City

The city of Kirkuk is one of the disputed cities between the Kurdistan Regional Government and Baghdad. In the Iraqi Constitution 2005, through Article 140, the constitutional solution to this problem was decided, through (normalization, the census of the city’s population, the referendum). This process is depending on the number of population .
 The simple marriage habits of Arabs and the difficulty of Kurdish marriage led to rapid population growth among Arabs..
 Population growth is influenced by a wide array of social and cultural variables including social customs, marriage levels, birth rate, and family size and so on.
 The Kurdish rural community has been dismantled since the 1980s, while the Arab rural society is in a state of continuous growth. Moreover, the Kurdish population is concentrated inside the city and practices urban or marginal occupations, while the Arab population has become widely distributed in villages, districts and within the city, practicing pastoral, agricultural, governmental, security and military occupations. The Arab rural community is also characterized by high demographic growth due to early marriage, lack of family planning and polygamy, while the Kurdish urban population is characterized by a low population due to delayed marriages, birth control and civil marriage. Furthermore, the average size of Kurdish family is between (3 to 5 persons), while the average size of Arab family, especially in rural areas, ranges between 8 and 10. The process of marriage in Arab society is easy and does not cost much while this process tends to be more costly in Kurdish community. It is worth mentioning that the migration of Kurdish youth outwards or the migration of Kurdish families to Kurdistan Region is high, while migration for many Arab families and their young members tend to be towards Kirkuk city. The percentage of spinsterhood in Kurdish society is higher compare to Arab community. Therefore, we expect that the percentage of Kurds in Kirkuk will fall to (38%) in 2030, after it was 48% in the 1957. And the percentage of Arabs in Kirkuk will arise to (35%) in 2030, after it was 21% in the 1957.

Political uncertainty of the nation as an objective factor in shaping the life plans of the Kurdish youth (empirical research experience)

The article presents both legal and sociological views on the problems of Nations living in the conditions of another state. The article examines the impact of the contradiction between the right of a nation to self-determination and the principle of territorial integrity as an urgent problem for the Kurdish youth. Attention is drawn to the need to humanize international law in relation to Nations in conditions of political uncertainty. It is proposed to use the following means to reduce violence: international law, international supranational organizations, and General humanization of social processes. To ensure that this contradiction does not remain practically insoluble and to reduce the level of violence in existing conflicts, it is necessary to develop certain international rules that would allow Nations fighting for sovereignty to exercise their right to self-determination. Based on the results of a sociological study of the life plans of Kurdish youth living in the Republic of Iraq, it is shown how such an objective factor as political uncertainty affects the formation of life plans of young people and what consequences this leads to. It is proved that the situation of the Kurdish people is not only a political, but also a social problem. A low horizon for planning a life strategy deprives the young generation of the opportunity to be confident in the future, hinders the creation of a family, and forms migration moods. For a person, the inability to plan their life turns into a state of frustration, depressive States, and the need to find a way out of this situation. The need to humanize the processes of self-determination of Nations is caused by the fact that life in a state of uncertainty has a negative impact on the ethnic group as a whole, and on young generations in particular.

Parental Discipline and Child Psychosocial Outcomes in Iraq and Kurdistan: Evidence From a Nationally Representative Sample.

Few empirical studies have been conducted on populations in the Middle-East, particularly in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, regarding the relationships between the type of discipline used by caregivers and its subsequent effect on children. Our analyses, which are based on data from the Iraq Multi-Cluster Survey 2018, replicate the prior work of scholars using Western samples, and suggest that variation in parental practices pertaining to the discipline of children is a robust predictor of several negative psychosocial outcomes among Iraqi and Kurdish youth. Specifically, we found that children who were subjected to various forms of violent physical discipline, psychological aggression, and neglectful parenting were more likely to exhibit an array of symptoms of psychosocial disorder, relative to measures of adequate parenting. Our analyses also provide strong support for the presence of comorbid psychosocial outcomes among Iraqi and Kurdish youth that stem from differences in the practice of parental discipline. The results of the current study are discussed regarding both theoretical and practical applications. The study's limitations are also addressed and suggestions for future research on the discipline-outcome nexus are given.

From Religion and Resources to Conflict: the Yazidis and ISIS

The Yazidis, surely one of the most unknown communities in the Middle East, made it to the front page of international media in 2014 when the Dáesh added them to their long list of victims. However, it was not the first time in history that this community suffered direct attacks and discrimination for their religion. On October 5, Iraq celebrated the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to one of its citizens, Nadia Murad, awarded for her fight against the use of sexual violence as a weapon in armed conflict. With this, Murad placed her people, the Yazidis, a religious minority in northern Iraq, in the center of hundreds of articles in the international press. Murad was also the first Kurd to win the award, which made her, as stated by the leader of the Kurdistan National Party, a symbol of firmness for Kurdish women and youth.

The Effect of Religion on the Political Identity of Kurdish Youth (with Focus on University Students)

<em>This article studies the relationship between religion and political identity in Eastern Kurdistan located in Iran. For this purpose, it reviews at first the theoretical debates on social and political identities, the bases of Kurdish individual’s political identity and the situation of religion in Kurdish society as one of them.<strong> </strong>Then,<strong> </strong>the quantitative and analytical methods are used to measure the effect of religion. The results show that religion and religious identity are still important determinants of political identity in Kurdistan that is affected by the situation of society. Because of both the influence of religion in this traditional society and the existence of a totalitarian religious government, the other social factors and identities cannot practically affect the political identity, though they are also important and powerful in the society, especially the Kurdish identity. Hence, the political identity of Kurdish youth is further affected by the government’s politics and policies that reinforce both Iranian and religious identities and prevent the manifestation of the other identities in political arena. </em>

Ethnic identity without ethnic media? Diasporic cosmopolitanism, (social) media and distant conflict among young Kurds in London

Media are fundamental to the way communities make sense of conflicts. This also holds true for diaspora communities, who are involved in and affected by distant/homeland conflicts. Shifting away from the dominant focus on ‘radicalization’ through media in this context, this study looks at the role media play in making sense of such conflict among young Kurds in London. Data consist of focus groups with Kurdish youth, participant observations in community centres and ethnographic conversations. While media are generally perceived as the central forces through which diaspora youth experience and engage with the Kurdish conflict in Turkey, ethnic media, in particular Kurdish broadcasting, play a very limited role. The distance vis-à-vis ethnic media is analysed and explained through respondents’ discourses on diasporic cosmopolitanism. The results show that their shift away from ethnic media facilitates more solid ethnic identities and more enhanced engagements with the Kurdish conflict.

KURDISH IDENTITY AND SPORTS IN TURKEY: THE CASE OF AMEDSPOR

The Kurds, the largest minority in Turkey, have almost no visibility in Turkish sports. While Kurdish sportspeople are not discouraged from joining in sports activities, their participation is heavily monitored by the government agencies against any manifestation of ethnic identity. Football in the Kurdish regions, seen by the Turkish state as a tool to distract Kurdish youth from political activities, has always been subject to the direct intervention of the civil and military bureaucracy, their presence in club boards is not uncommon. However, a third-division club named Amedspor, challenged all the unwritten rules related to Kurds in sports, at the expense of receiving a recurring suspension from the Turkish Football Federation. This article examines the Kurdish sports and the Amedspor case through Manuel Castells’ conception of legitimizing, resistance and project identities

The generation conflicht between the Kurds in diaspora

The largest center of the Kurdish Diaspora in Europe is Germany. Kurds have migrated to Germany at different times but massively before Turks. Although the Kurdish population is not accepted by the official authorities, it is the third largest minority in Germany. Here they organized, educated, began some business and by the way third generation is raising their kids. Nevertheless the Kurds are not considered as an independent minority in scientific research and are not researched as such. So the scientific data on the Kurds are very few. Both some researches and media and our research shows that : Boys and girls leave the house in a significant number of Kurdish families. Some of them commited suicide, some of them were killed and some of them were kicked out of their homes by their parents. And also some were forced to marry. This means that there is a problem between the children and the parents (conflict of parental and filial) in the Kurdish family. Kurdish youth from the other side are very active in the political arena. But what is remarkable here is that the social conflict of generation does not exactly appear in the Kurdish society. The purpose of this article is to examine folowing situation in general: Could the problems between the Kurdish generations be defined as the conflict of generation? And If there is a conflict of generation, why does not it appear in the Kurdish society in Germany.

The Effect of Religion on the Political Identity of Kurdish Youth (With a Focus on the University Students)

This article studies the relationship between religion and political identity in Eastern Kurdistan located in Iran. For this purpose, it reviews at first the theoretical debates on social and political identities, the bases of Kurdish individual’s political identity and the situation of religion in Kurdish society as one of them. Then, the quantitative and analytical methods are used to measure the effect of religion. The results show that religion and religious identity are still important determinants of political identity in Kurdistan that is affected by the situation of society. Because of both the influence of religion in this traditional society and the existence of a totalitarian religious government, the other social factors and identities cannot practically affect the political identity, though they are also important and powerful in the society, especially the Kurdish identity. Hence, the political identity of Kurdish youth is further affected by the government’s politics and policies that reinforce both Iranian and religious identities and prevent the manifestation of the other identities in political arena.

Voting Behavior of the Youth in Turkey: What Drives Involvement in or Causes Alienation from Conventional Political Participation?

ABSTRACT The decline of conventional political participation of the youth is a serious concern in many countries worldwide. Studying the Turkish example, this paper aims to empirically analyze the determinants of youngsters’ (non)voting behavior. The analysis shows that lifestyle is the most important factor, reflecting the importance of the youth’s everyday practices on their conventional political participation. Besides, being female, having higher levels of education and residing in an urban area increase the probability of abstaining. Moreover, ‘economic voting’ exists for youngsters as they are found to be punishing the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) for economic prospects unpromising either individually or societally. For first-time voters, lifestyle and the 2013 Gezi protests are the main determinants of voting behavior. Furthermore, there is persistence in abstaining from voting as having abstained in the 2011 general elections increases the probability of abstaining again by 18 percent. The analysis of disillusioned youth demonstrates that Gezi protests have increased the probability of their conventional political participation; they can be associated either with a decline in their probability of voting for the AKP, or of being indecisive and/or abstaining. A factor change analysis, however, finds that the abstained and indecisive Kurdish youth’s preferences have shifted towards pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party post-Gezi.

Generation in debt: Family, politics, and youth subjectivities in Diyarbakır

AbstractThis paper investigates the political subjectivities of Kurdish youth in Diyarbakır through the interplay of kinship and politics. We argue that it is through a framework of kinship that young people make sense of the Kurdish issue. We show that the war between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK) and the Turkish military has reshaped the Kurdish family, leading to a crisis in the life cycle. We suggest that the young feel indebted to the Kurdish movement, which they express using the term bedel (“debt”). Debt is related to the family, as the individual becomes indebted as part of a kinship group. We argue that the expansion of public space in Diyarbakır has created alternative ways of paying debt and doing politics.

Between Conformism and Separatism: A Kurdish Students’ Association in Istanbul, 1912 to 1914

This article is an examination of the ‘Kurdish Students’ Hope Society’ – a youth-led Kurdish organization founded in the Ottoman imperial capital, Istanbul, in 1912. The article contends that the foundation of this organization should not be seen simply as a reaction to the gradual ethnic polarization and ‘Turkification’ of Ottoman politics that occurred in the aftermath of the 1908 ‘Young Turk Revolution’. It also needs to be understood in the context of dynamics emanating from within Kurdish society. Specifically, to the backdrop of an increasingly fragmented Kurdish elite, the Kurdish youth were setting out their own path towards national salvation which was neither conformist nor separatist. In short, they were outlining a ‘third way’ between these two extremes.

Kurdish adolescents acquiring Turkish: Their self‐determined motivation and identification with L1 and L2 communities as predictors of L2 accent attainment

ABSTRACTIn this study, we address the particularly charged question of why young adolescent Kurds living and attending school in Turkey, where their education is conducted entirely in Turkish, acquire the accent of the regional Turkish spoken at school and in society to different degrees of native‐likeness. We have chosen to study accent because previous sociolinguistic research and social views of L2 attainment have suggested accent to be the strongest marker of L2 learners' sociocultural identification (Baugh, 1999; Bongaerts, 1999; Labov, 1972; Moyer, 2004; Scovel, 1988). Moreover, we study accent because it is a salient source of linguistic profiling (Baugh, 1999), an important factor that can influence such extrinsic social rewards as access to jobs, entry into a country, housing, or membership in a group, particularly in communities that are imbued with violent conflicts. In our study, we called upon the constructs of identification with speakers of a person's first and second languages (Duff, 2002; Norton Peirce, 1995; Spolsky, 1989) and of self‐determined motivational patterns (Dörnyei, 2005; Pintrich, 2003; Ryan & Deci, 2000) to help elucidate the differing degrees of success in attaining a native‐like Turkish accent exhibited by Kurdish youth in a Turkish‐speaking society.

Politics of privacy: forced migration and the spatial struggle of the Kurdish youth

In the Gundogan1 Neighbourhood in the city of Adana where I conducted my fieldwork, I witnessed an interesting demonstration organized by the Kurdish youth for no apparent reason at all, which, I t...

How do the Youth Perceive and Experience Turkish Citizenship?

Citizenship is generally perceived as a political practice that falls within the historical domain of the nation-state. At least, this is the claim of many nation-states themselves, which disavow the possibility of citizenship outside of their own structures. Rather than concentrate on the organization of citizenship, this article, instead, concentrates on the experience of individual citizens. It explores a wide-ranging sample of Turkish youth's perceptions and practices of citizenship, focusing on three dimensions: citizenship as legal status; citizenship as identity; and citizenship as civic virtue. It argues that individuals' perceptions and experiences of citizenship can be mapped out according to these three dimensions, and, additionally, political affiliation or commitment is the key to young people's preference for any one of these dimensions. Thus the legal status aspect of citizenship was emphasized by liberal and republican young people; nationalist, Islamist and Kurdish youth were concerned for its identity aspects; and the civic virtue aspect was stressed by republican and leftist respondents. However the article also demonstrates that similarly to the experiences of young people themselves, these three aspects of citizenship are not clearly demarcated theoretical domains but are both deeply interrelated and conflicted with each other. The reasons for this lie in the practice and understanding of citizenship facilitated and propagated by the Turkish state.