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Generation in debt: Family, politics, and youth subjectivities in Diyarbakır

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2015

Leyla Neyzi  and
Haydar Darıcı
Leyla Neyzi
Affiliation:
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabancı University, Orta Mahalle, Tuzla 34956, İstanbul, Turkey, neyzi@sabanciuniv.edu.
Haydar Darıcı
Affiliation:
joint program in anthropology and history, University of Michigan, 500 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA, haydardarici@gmail.com.
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Abstract

This paper investigates the political subjectivities of Kurdish youth in Diyarbakır through the interplay of kinship and politics. We argue that it is through a framework of kinship that young people make sense of the Kurdish issue. We show that the war between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK) and the Turkish military has reshaped the Kurdish family, leading to a crisis in the life cycle. We suggest that the young feel indebted to the Kurdish movement, which they express using the term bedel (“debt”). Debt is related to the family, as the individual becomes indebted as part of a kinship group. We argue that the expansion of public space in Diyarbakır has created alternative ways of paying debt and doing politics.

Keywords

WarviolencekinshipgenderKurdsTurkey.
Type
Articles
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 52 , May 2015 , pp. 55 - 75
Copyright
© New Perspectives on Turkey and Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

Authors’ Note: The authors would like to thank Andrew Shyrock, Nazan Üstündağ and Ilgın Erdem for their feedback on a draft of this paper.

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