CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Corut, Ilker |
|---|---|
| Title | Kurds between Sovereign Violence and Bio-Political Care: Healthcare Provision in Hakkari during the AK Party Era |
| Summary | Based on dissatisfaction with the strong inclination in nationalism studies that identify nationalism with extremist political practices and discourses, this dissertation specifically focuses on the effects and subjectivities generated by the on-going improvement of healthcare provision of the Turkish state in Hakkari, a small Kurdish province which has witnessed the intense armed conflict between the Turkish army and Kurdish rebels led by the PKK for the last 30 years. The question which is sought to be answered through this focus is the failure of the on-going improvement of healthcare provision in Hakkari to meet the expectations and demands of patients despite the fact that the improvement of healthcare provision in Hakkari with respect to health labor force, medical infrastructure, immunization coverage is undeniable and can be shown by statistical indicators of the work performance of the medical establishment. My attempt at answering the question is theoretically based on a critical framework formulated with reference to the literature on everyday nationalism, the critical perspective of subaltern school, and fruitful conceptualizations of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben on bio-politics and sovereignty. The dissertation argues that nationalist practices and discourses, and also resistances to these practices and discourses, may also take place through everyday policies and services of the state which work as mechanisms of nationalist interpellation, though they do not impose visible signifiers of national identity. Methodologically, the dissertation is based on a fieldwork carried out in Hakkari. The material collected during the research has five main sources: Interviews conducted with doctors and also with other health staff, interviews conducted with patients, field notes and participatory observations, survey research and archival work. Drawing on this critical framework and material collected, it is argued that the improvement of healthcare provision in Hakkâri during the AK Party era should be regarded as an attempt to render people as pedagogical objects/bare lives by translating their everydayness into a moment in the linearity of the transition/development narrative of the Turkish state/nationalism. This attempt, however, has failed to construct hegemony in the face of the subjectivities of the citizens, and the subjectivities and histories excluded from this narrative continue to haunt the pedagogical narrative in the very performance of citizenship in Hakkâri as dissatisfaction with public services, and hence the AK Party and its Turkish nationalism. |
| Supervisor | Ayse Caglar |
| Department | Sociology PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/corut_ilker.pdf |
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