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Abstract
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Synopsis
This article examines the impact of armed conflict on Kurdish women in southeastern Turkey. I conceptualize women's agency in relation to their political consciousness and capability to seek justice in legal, political, socio-economic, and cultural terms. I argue that Kurdish women's agency stems from several phenomena: their experiences with the war, displacement, and the city; their politicization as a result of their peculiar relationship with the Turkish state, based on mutual suspicion and fear; and their propinquity with the Kurdish ethno-nationalist political organization through ethnic propaganda and mobilization. I further point out the complications involved in women's resocialization and politicization in ethnicized terms, questioning the possibility for turning an ethnically-assertive and exclusive form of women's agency into an emancipatory, inclusive, democratic force. |