Cengiz Gunes
History
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- Member for
- 1 year 13 weeks
My Profile
- Title
- Mr.
- Occupation
- Researcher: PhD
- Discipline(s)
- Politics, Political Theory
- University
- University of Essex
- Department
- Department of Government
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Town / City
- Colchester
- Previous Universities
- Keele University, Birkbeck College - University of London
- RESEARCH INTERESTS
- Identity, Identity Politics, Nationalism, Kurdish, Turkish Politics, Middle East, Turkey, Armenia, Political Theory, Contemporary Political Theory, Foucault, Poststructuralism, Gramsci, Marx, Resistance, Hegemony, Discourse Theory
My_Publications
- My Publications
Kurdish Politics in Turkey - A question of Identity, 2008 (Forthcoming)
Other info
- Supervisors
- Aletta Norval
- Main Influences
- Marx, Gramsci, Foucault, Laclau
About me
Title: Democracy and the Kurdish National Movement in Turkey
My research will provide an analysis of two of inter-related issues facing contemporary Turkish politics, namely the furthering of democracy, and successful incorporation of Kurdish demands and rights within Turkey. Over the past 25 years, the Kurds in Turkey has been very active in challenging the Turkish state nationalism; this challenge was organised in two different ways; firstly, through the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) in the form of guerrilla warfare, and secondly, through the legal political pro-Kurdish political parties by taking part in elections and participating in the political processes to increase the demands for Kurdish rights and increase their positions. By examining in detail the discursive construction of Kurdish identity in Turkey and how it has been changing in the face of internal and external dislocations, I will offer a deeper understanding of contemporary Kurdish political identity in Turkey. I investigate the ways in which Kurdish identity and political demands were/are articulated through, firstly, the discourse of ‘national liberation’ from 1980 to 1995 and, secondly, through a democratic discourse from early 1990s to the present. The key focus of the study, however, will be on the latter. By focusing on the articulation of Kurdish rights within the discourse of democracy my research will develop insights into the nature of the democracy that is proposed and how will it be developed, as well as highlight possible limitations to its development in Turkey. This will allow me to draw substantial conclusions about deepening of democracy in Turkey, including the role Kurds may play in this process. My analysis will offer insights of a normative and critical nature, and will enrich democratic theory in general and radical democracy in particular. In addition, my research will make an original and critical contribution to the debate on the theory of citizenship in multinational societies.- Member for
- 1 year 13 weeks