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Animalization of Kurds in Turkish-Speaking Social Media

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2024

Serhat Tutkal Open the ORCID record for Serhat Tutkal [Opens in a new window]
Serhat Tutkal*
Affiliation:
Center for Asian and African Studies, The College of Mexico, Mexico City
*
Email: stutkal@unal.edu.co
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Abstract

This article analyzes tweets in the Turkish language from November 2020 to May 2021 in which Kurds are explicitly mentioned that feature negative animalization directed toward Kurds and pro-Kurdish organizations. It systematically compares ways of animalization attribution, to what entities the animalization is attributed mostly, and the attributors (actors) of animalization. First, it argues that animalizing dehumanization directed at Kurds in the data set principally occurs for attributing the lack of four human traits: agency, civility, morality, and rationality. Second, it shows in what different ways the lack of these traits is attributed to Kurdish people in general and to major pro-Kurdish groups such as HDP (the largest pro-Kurdish legal political party) and PKK (the largest pro-Kurdish armed group). Finally, it discloses three main political networks among Twitter users within the data set and characterizes how negative animal references to Kurds, pro-Kurdish groups, and each other were used by these actors. Thus, this research seeks to establish a framework to study other ethnic conflicts from the perspective of animalization and invites further research on whether the trends that were found imply a general tendency around the world.

Keywords

dehumanizationKurdspolitical communicationTwitterTurkey

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Nationalities Papers , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , July 2024 , pp. 907 - 934
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© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Association for the Study of Nationalities

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