Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T04:59:55.021Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

36 - A Struggle within a Struggle

A History of the Kurdistan Women’s Freedom Movement, 1978–2019

from Part VII - Transversal Dynamics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2021

Hamit Bozarslan
Affiliation:
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
Cengiz Gunes
Affiliation:
The Open University, Milton Keynes
Veli Yadirgi
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Get access

Summary

This chapter historically contextualizes the Kurdish Women’s Freedom Movement and analyses the trajectory of its organizational structures from 1987 to the present. It traces how the women’s movement managed to establish its own army (1995) and party (1999) within the PKK, while also establishing the co-chair system and the women’s quota in the political sphere in the early 2000s. The chapter zooms into one crucial moment of contestation between the women and men of the movement: the formation of the Kurdistan Women’s Worker’s Party (Partiya Jinên Karkerên Kurdistanê, PJKK) in 1999. It asks to what extent this and similar internal struggles can help us to gain a more nuanced understand of how the women managed to carve out the spaces for autonomous organizing within the wider movement, how the liberation of women came to feature so prominently in the movement’s ideology and how this speaks to ongoing debates around nationalism and feminism. The chapter also highlights some of the tensions and contradictions that emerge between the claim to liberation and the clear framework around the ‘free woman’.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abu-Lughod, L. (1993). Writing Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Abu-Lughod, L. (1998). Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East. Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aktürk, A. S. (2016). Female cousins and wounded masculinity: Kurdish nationalist discourse in the post-Ottoman Middle East. Middle Eastern Studies, 52 (1), 4659.Google Scholar
Al-Ali, N. and Pratt, N. (eds) (2009). Women and War in the Middle East: Transnational Perspectives. London: Zed Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Ali, N. and Pratt, N. (2011). Between nationalism and women’s rights: The Kurdish women’s movement in Iraq. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 4 (3), 339–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Ali, N. and Tas, L. (2018a). Reconsidering nationalism and feminism: The Kurdish political movement in Turkey. Nations and Nationalism, 24 (2), 121.Google Scholar
Al-Ali, N. and Tas, L. (2018b). Clashes, collaborations and convergences: Evolving relations of Turkish and Kurdish women’s rights activists. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, August, 115.Google Scholar
Al-Ali, N. and Tas, L. (2018c). Dialectics of Struggle: Challenges to the Kurdish Women’s Movement. Middle East Centre Paper Series 22. London: London School of Economics.Google Scholar
ANF (2018). ‘KJAR proposal for women in Iran and eastern Kurdistan’. ANF News, 25 August. https://anfenglishmobile.com/women/kjar-proposal-for-women-in-iran-and-eastern-kurdistan-29202.Google Scholar
Begikhani, N., Hamelink, W. and Weiss, N. (2018). Theorising women and war in Kurdistan: A feminist and critical perspective. Kurdish Studies, 6 (1), 530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bozarslan, H. (2009). Conflit Kurde: Le Brasier Oublié Du Moyen-Orient. Collection Mondes et Nations. Paris: Autrement.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bozarslan, H. (2012). Between integration, autonomization and radicalization: Hamit Bozarslan on the Kurdish movement and the Turkish left. Interview by Marlies Casier and Olivier Grojean. European Journal of Turkish Studies: Social Sciences on Contemporary Turkey, no. 14, 216. https://doi.org/10.4000/ejts.4663.Google Scholar
Burç, R. (2018). One state, one nation, one flag – one gender? HDP as a challenger of the Turkish nation-state and its gendered perspectives. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, August, 116.Google Scholar
Çağlayan, H. (2007). Analar, yoldaşlar, tanrıçalar: Kürt hareketinde kadınlar ve kadın kimliğinin oluşumu. Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları.Google Scholar
Çağlayan, H. (2012). From Kawa the blacksmith to Ishtar the goddess: Gender constructions in ideological-political discourses of the Kurdish movement in post-1980 Turkey. Possibilities and limits. European Journal of Turkish Studies: Social Sciences on Contemporary Turkey, no. 14 (June), 123.Google Scholar
Çağlayan, H. (2020). Women in the Kurdish Movement: Mothers, Comrades, Goddesses. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cansız, S. (2015). Mein ganzes Leben war ein Kampf: 1. Band – Jugendjahre. Neuss: Mezopotamien Verlag.Google Scholar
Cansız, S. (2018). Mein ganzes Leben war ein Kampf: 3. Band – Guerilla. Neuss: Mezopotamien Verlag.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, P. (1993). The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cockburn, C. (1998). The Space between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Cockburn, C. (2007). From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism and Feminist Analysis. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Dirik, D. (2018). Overcoming the nation-state: Women’s autonomy and radical democracy in Kurdistan. In Mulholland, J., Montagna, N. and Sanders-McDonagh, E. (eds), Gendering Nationalism (pp. 145–63). Cham: Springer International Publishing.Google Scholar
Duzel, E. (2018). Fragile goddesses: Moral subjectivity and militarized agencies in female guerrilla diaries and memoirs. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 20 (2), 116.Google Scholar
Enloe, C. (1988). Does Khaki Become You? The Militarization of Women’s Lives. London: Pandora Press.Google Scholar
Enloe, C. (2014). Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fischer-Tahir, A. (2009). Brave Men, Pretty Women? Gender and Symbolic Violence in Iraqi Kurdish Urban Society. Berlin: Europäisches Zentrum für Kurdische Studien.Google Scholar
Flach, A., Ayboğa, E. and Knapp, M. (2016). Revolution in Rojava: Frauenbefreiung und Kommunalismus zwischen Krieg und Embargo: Hamburg: VSA Verlag.Google Scholar
Gambetti, Z. (2009). Politics of place/space: The spatial dynamics of the Kurdish and Zapatista movements. New Perspectives on Turkey, 41, 4387.Google Scholar
Göç Izleme Derneği (Migration Monitoring Association), AKM (2019). ‘Report on human rights violations against women and their experiences during the curfews and forced migration’. https://bit.ly/3jKMY7q.Google Scholar
Gunes, C. (2012). The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey: From Protest to Resistance. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gunes, C. (2019). Developments in the Kurdish issue in Syria and Turkey in 2017. European Yearbook of Minority Issues, 16 (1), 211–29.Google Scholar
Herausgeberinnenkollektiv (ed.) (2012). Widerstand und Gelebte Utopien: Frauenguerilla, Frauenbefreiung und Demokratischer Konföderalismus in Kurdistan. Neuss: Mezopotamien Verlag.Google Scholar
Jayawardena, K. (1986). Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Jineolojî Committee Europe (2018). Jineolojî. Neuss: Mezopotamien Verlag.Google Scholar
Jongerden, J. (2017). Gender equality and radical democracy: Contradictions and conflicts in relation to the ‘new paradigm’ within the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), ed. Bozarslan, H.. Antoli: Les Kurdes: Puissance Montante Au Moyen-Orient, no. 8, 233–56.Google Scholar
Jongerden, J. and Akkaya, A. H. (2013). Democratic Confederalism as a Kurdish Spring: The PKK and the quest for radical democracy. In Ahmed, M. M. A. and Gunter, M. M. (eds), The Kurdish Spring: Geopolitical Changes and the Kurds (pp. 163–85). Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers.Google Scholar
Kandiyoti, D. (1987). Emancipated but unliberated? Reflections on the Turkish case. Feminist Studies, 13 (2), 317–38.Google Scholar
Kandiyoti, D. (ed.) (1991). Women, Islam, and the State. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Käser, I. (2019). ‘Mountain life is difficult but beautiful!’ The gendered process of ‘becoming free’ in PKK education. In Drechselová, L. and Çelik, A. (eds), Kurds in Turkey: Ethnographies of Heterogeneous Experiences (pp. 1130). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Koma Jinên Bilind (2011). ‘The Kurdistan women’s liberation movement for a universal women’s struggle’. KJK Online. www.kjk-online.org/hakkimizda/?lang=en (site discontinued).Google Scholar
Koohi-Kamali, F. (2003). The Political Development of the Kurds in Iran: Pastoral Nationalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
McDonald, S. (2001). Kurdish women and self-determination: A feminist approach to international law. In Mojab, S. (ed.), Women of a Non-state Nation: The Kurds (pp. 135–60). Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers.Google Scholar
Mojab, S. (2000). Vengeance and violence: Kurdish women recount the war. Canadian Woman Studies, 19 (4), 8994.Google Scholar
Mojab, S. (2004). No ‘safe haven’: Violence against women in Iraqi Kurdistan. In Giles, W. and Hyndman, J. (eds), Sites of Violence: Gender and Conflict Zones (pp. 108–33). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Montgomery, H. (2005). The Kurds of Syria: An Existence Denied. Berlin: Europäisches Zentrum für Kurdische Studien.Google Scholar
Najmabadi, A. (1997). The erotic vatan [homeland] as beloved and mother: To love, to possess, and to protect. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 39 (3), 442–67.Google Scholar
Öcalan, A. (2013). Liberating Life: Woman’s Revolution. Cologne: International Initiative.Google Scholar
O’Keefe, T. (2013). Feminist Identity Development and Activism in Revolutionary Movements. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Sahin-Mencutek, Z. (2016). Strong in the movement, strong in the party: Women’s representation in the Kurdish Party of Turkey. Political Studies, 64 (2), 470–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidinger, T. (2018). Rojava: Revolution, War and the Future of Syria’s Kurds. London: Pluto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solina, C. (1997). Der Weg in die Berge: Eine Frau bei der kurdischen Befreiungsbewegung. Hamburg: Edition Nautilus.Google Scholar
Tejel, J. (2009). Syria’s Kurds: History, Politics and Society. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Watts, N. F. (2010). Activists in Office: Kurdish Politics and Protest in Turkey. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Weiss, N. (2010). Falling from grace: Gender norms and gender strategies in eastern Turkey. New Perspectives on Turkey, 42, 5576. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0896634600005574.Google Scholar
White, A. M. (2007). All the men are fighting for freedom, all the women are mourning their men, but some of us carried guns: A raced-gendered analysis of Fanon’s psychological perspectives on war. Signs, 32 (4), 857–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yildiz, K. (2004). The Kurds in Syria: Denial of Rights and Identity. London: Kurdish Human Rights Project.Google Scholar
Yılmaz, A. (2016). Atruş’tan Maxmur’a. Istanbul: Iletişım.Google Scholar
Yüksel, M. (2006). The encounter of Kurdish women with nationalism in Turkey. Middle Eastern Studies, 42 (5), 777802.Google Scholar
Yuval-Davis, N. (1997). Gender and Nation. Politics and Culture. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Yuval-Davis, N. and Anthias, F. (eds) (1989). Woman, Nation, State. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×