Workshop on Contentious Politics in Kurdish Studies: Land, Nature, and Infrastructure

Workshop hosted by the Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University and Research, September 1, 2023

In Turkey occupations and demonstrations by landless workers and peasants demanding for land reform have taken place on a large scale since the middle of the 20th century. Peasant and landless workers’ politicization and mobilization led to a re-configuration of municipal politics as it transformed into a space where landed elites’ political and economic dominance was contested. The massive rural-to-urban migration which witnessed millions of rural dwellers relocating to urban centres, triggered another issue of contention: the occupation of urban-peripheral land for housing and the staking by former villagers of their right to the city. In more recent years, this contestation over land has overlapped with the rise of environmental activism. In the Aegean, Marmara, and Black Sea regions, protests have been staged against gold mining and its associated ecological degradation and pollution. While in east and southeast Anatolia, Kurdistan (Bakur) protests took place against the construction of dams that resulted in forced displacement and the destruction of heritage and nature. In Istanbul, the destruction of nature (Gezi Park) and plans for the Istanbul Canal Project stirred protests. And in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, the construction of villas along the banks of the Tigris and the Hevsel Gardens has provoked fierce opposition. These different protests are staged by various actors, from rural communities to transnational activists, with various ideological commitments, having different concerns. Yet, they are all met with repression by an increasingly authoritarian rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

These patterns of contention over and about land across Turkey are further complicated by the ongoing political and armed conflict between the Turkish state and the Kurdish political movements in the country’s southeast. Although, the conflict is not simply reducible to a struggle over land, the war of recent decades has upended patterns of land ownership, access and use, the mass depopulation of millions of Kurdish rural dwellers since the 1990s, the targeted destruction of the Kurdish lived environment since the 1990s through forest burnings, the use of chemical weapons, and  interference with water supplies, culminating in the construction of dams in the region. The PKK’s ideology of Democratic Confederalism foregrounds environmental struggle: Unusually for a national liberation movement it emphasizes ecological concerns and holds that they need to be immediately addressed during the campaign against the state rather than relegated to some future date. In the country’s recent elections, the pro-Kurdish HDP/Green-Left remained a rallying point for those aspiring to a pluriform democracy. Therefore, practices of insurgency, contentious politics, resistance, and environmental politics are fundamentally intertwined.

The workshop Contentious Politics: Land, Nature, and Infrastructure addresses a number of theoretical debates and questions related to land in Kurdish studies. It invites submissions (papers/presentations) related to three specific themes:

Continuity and change in Kurdish Contentious Politics related to Land; In the wake of the Armenian and Syriac genocides, the establishment of colonial boundaries, the institutional strengthening of the Turkish state and the weakening of feudal land domination, land and its uses in Kurdistan has undergone massive transformation in the last century. This section of the workshop looks at the particularities of contestation over land in the Kurdish case; its symbolic importance, its ownership, the wealth it produces and how these struggles overlap (or indeed do not overlap) with other regional and international cases.

Land as a point of intersection with issues of Class, Gender, and Ethnicity; Kurdistan is populated by multiple peoples and communities with contending claims of historical legitimacy and often in competition with one another.  It has been horizontally and vertically fractured between the former beneficiaries of feudalism and state favoritism, and those who actually work the land. And of course, the gendered division of labour and exploitation of women prevails in the land related issues, particularly in relation to the millions of displaced families since the 1990s.

Practices of Contestation over Land: contestation has taken many different shapes in Kurdistan, ranging from feudal uprisings, national liberation insurgency, campaigns of radical municipalism, electoral contestation at local and national levels, religious and communal mobilization, and mass civil society mobilization. They have differed in ideological content, their relationship (co-operative, dependent or independent) with Turkish political actors, as well as their commitment or lack thereof to pan-Kurdish political objectives. They have also varied in relation in how they have tried to leverage international pressure by framing their protests as part of broader transnational climate activism.

Please contact Workshop organizers, Joost Jongerden (joost.jongerden@wur.nl) and Francis O’Connor (francis.oconnor@wur.nl) with expressions of interest.

Bim and bumpy roads in Tajikistan: A dog as guard and companion “in the field”

Irna Hofman (photographs taken by author)

I am afraid of the dog, but I like its owner (Az in sag metarsam, lekin sohibashro naghz mebinam), the senior state official stated while staring at my Lada Niva parked by the road and inside, waiting for me to return, my dog Bim.[*] The official and I were standing at a crossroads, talking about land use issues. I had known him for years and tried to laugh off the statement, but it took me some time before I could pick up the conversation again. It was late in my fieldwork in Tajikistan, and his words, later caused me to reflect on one of the roles Bim had taken on during my fieldwork. She was my posbon, my guard.

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New RSO student authored article on Ayurveda and commodification in Europe

Former RSO thesis student Marine Viale has had an article based on her thesis published in the Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine. The article’s title is Conserving traditional wisdom in a commodified landscape: Unpacking brand Ayurveda, and is co-authored with Mark Vicol from RSO. Fantastic to see a very good thesis leading to a peer-reviewed publication. You can read the full article here https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0975-9476(22)00126-7 and the abstract is pasted below.

Abstract

As Ayurveda continues to gain global recognition as a sanctioned system of health care, the essence of Ayurveda’s identity has become prey to commoditization and commodification for commercial undertakings in the holistic health milieu of India, but also in emerging markets such as Europe. This paper critically assesses the commodification of Ayurveda as a cultural signifier within Europe that separates the indigenous artefact from its Vedic origins. Often presented as an elite commodity in Western settings, Ayurveda has become embedded as a cultural artifact within consumer society as the epitome of holistic care with an emphasis on its spiritual attributes, yet simultaneously isolating it from the customary elements that motivated its inception. The paper argues that Ayurveda’s discursive detachment from its ontological tenets facilitates its rearticulation as a malleable experience as it crosses national boundaries, and in this process fosters the misinterpretation of the ancient healing tradition. This process may provide Ayurvedic treatments and principles with increased visibility in Europe’s health sector. However, brands are exploiting this niche with push-marketing strategies to capitalize on the budding Ayurveda industry, turning traditional medicines into emblematic commodities. To advance this argument, we examine product diversions in the commodification of classical Ayurvedic medicines in the Netherlands and Germany, focusing on the over-the-counter (OTC) segment. We present an interpretive analysis of the processes that are (de)constructing traditional practices and principles as Ayurveda travels beyond India, and how this complicates issues of authenticity and expertise as herbal medicines diverge from the indications ratified in Ayurveda’s classical compendiums.

REMINDER: Assistant Professor Rural Sociology vacancy (Tenure Track) – application deadline 12 September 2022

A month ago we posted a job opening for an Assistant Professor in Rural Sociology (Tenure Track position). If you are interested to apply or know of potential candidates, please be aware that the deadline for submitting applications is approaching. Applications can be submitted up to and including September 12th 2022 via the apply button on the vacancy page.