Orientalism and the Kurdish question in Turkey: Kemalist women's discourses on Kurdish women in the 1990s

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1649721 (Table of Contents)

In Turkish Studies, there has been a strong tendency to analyze the modern history of Turkey from the perspective of Westernization. Although this trend preserved its impact, the opportunities that arise from this perspective have not been utilized with regard to the Kurdish Question. In this thesis, first, I argue that the simultaneous projects of Westernization and modernization brought about a certain Orientalist attitude towards Turkey’s eastern periphery. In a similar vein, I attempt to refine the social engineering theory with the inclusion of Orientalist and Occidentalist theories. I employ these theories because of the opportunities they provide to analyze Kemalist discourses with a particular emphasis on its developmentalist approach to the the eastern region as well as its ambivalent relationship with the West. In this study, I attempt to explore the outcomes of the Kemalist trajectory of modernization on the society in relation to the representation of Kurds and Kurdish women based on a CHP Pamphlet issued by the Women’s Branch on the living conditions of southeastern women in the 1990s.