The Challenges of Existence in Ignored Studies: The Kurdish Case
This conference focuses on the academic dimension of the struggle with a specific zoom to the Kurdish issue in Turkey, including broader transnational aspect as well.
While the interaction between people and access to information have considerably increased in the 21st Century, academic research is often conducted despite states’ desire to control the academic realm. The emergence of the modern nation-state as a new power mechanism has not only reshaped the relationship between citizen and state but also reconfigured the production of information and dissemination of it. The state control over information has made research in some fields ignored and for academics in the field dangerous for a long time. Homogenization efforts over citizens, on the other hand, have turned into a struggle for existence for groups who do not fit the monotype citizenship profile that states are trying to create.
Assimilation policies pursued by the Turkish state against Kurds' a century-long struggle for existence also spread to the academic environment. It took scholars a long time to discuss the existence of Kurds as a separate ethnic group in Turkey. However, this breakthrough came with a cost that manifested itself in several questions: Why does one avoid research in certain fields? What are the personal and academic concerns when deciding to research in a field deemed dangerous? Why is it difficult to raise funds for some research? This conference will, therefore, seek answers to these questions from within the academy itself.
The conference participants consist of both scholars who have faced the consequences of their academic stand towards the Kurdish question and researchers who have met personal and social challenges regarding their research. There are two keynote speakers, Nazan Üstündag and Engin Sustam. Both lost their academic positions in Turkey and were subjected to a legal investigation because they signed the Academics for Peace Petition emphasizing a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue in 2016. They are now among many others who have been forced to live in exile to continue their academic researches because of their signature on the petition.
Programme
13:00 – 14:30 First session
Kurdish Self-censorship and Criminalization of Research
Mustafa Kemal Topal, Doctoral Researcher, Roskilde University
Kurdish Transnational Activism and Legal Restrictions in Denmark
Anne Sofie Schøtt, PhD, Royal Danish Defence College
The Uncomfortable Union of Activism and Scholarship
Nazan Üstündag, Ph.D, Academy in Exile and IIE-Scholar Rescue Fund in Berlin
14:30 – 15:00 Break with coffee and cake
15:00 – 16:30 Second session
Researching Kurds: Entanglement, Friendship, and the State
Hasret Cetinkaya, Doctoral Researcher, National University of Ireland, Galway
A General Overview: The Trials of Academics for Peace in Turkey
Özlem Has, Doctoral Researcher, University of Copenhagen
Authoritarian Government in Turkey and "Telling the Truth" in the University Space against the War
Engin Sustam, Assoc. Prof, University of Paris 8
The conference is free for everyone and registration is not required. But knowing the number of participants will help us with preparations. In case you consider joining, feel free to register as a participant.
