CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2022
| Author | Tas, Arjin |
|---|---|
| Title | Urbanism as Counterinsurgency: Subjugation Through Urban Destruction and Redevelopment in Sur, Diyarbakir |
| Summary | Through the case of Sur, Diyarbakir, this thesis explores the relationship between ethnic conflict, counterinsurgency strategies, urban destruction, and urban redevelopment via their impacts on urban space. The main research question of the thesis is: How is urbanism (urban destruction and redevelopment) used as a counterinsurgency strategy to subjugate Kurdish cities and people? The case study material is based on (1) quantitative and qualitative data collected from different sources, (2) visualization of Sur through maps and satellite images designed by the author, and (3) two and a half months long fieldwork in Diyarbakir where two expert interviews, a total of nine interviews with the displaced people and the shopkeepers of Sur, and two field tours with informants and countless personal observation walks in Sur had been conducted by the author. During these field tours and walks, I took more than a thousand photos that reflect the abandoning, war, destruction, reconstruction, empties, and the ongoing everyday life in Sur. The case analysis of this thesis heavily depends on these pictures, which are narrated and analyzed. The theoretical framework of the thesis lies at the intersection of urban destruction, urban redevelopment, and counterinsurgency. Rather than dividing urban destruction and urban redevelopment into two separated phenomena that chronologically follow each other, this thesis proposes to evaluate urban redevelopment as a part, a phase, of continuing urban destruction. Moreover, in this thesis, to understand the urban destruction and the redevelopment project in Sur, I suggest conceptualizing urbanism as a counterinsurgency mechanism. This conceptualization is followed by a comprehensive historical contextualization of Diyarbakir, where the recurrent oppression of the Kurdish people is exposed. Finally, the case analysis is structured through Sur’s physical area, which is already fractured within. The threefold analysis exposes how urbanism is used as a counterinsurgency mechanism via (1) evaluating emptying space, emptiness, and depopulation as counterinsurgency strategies in The Void; (2) conceptualizing ambiguities, betweenness, and temporality facilitated by the urgent expropriation as other elements of counterinsurgency in The Limbo; and (3) unveiling the role of urban redevelopment and gentrification, that is securitization and depopulation, in counterinsurgency in New Face. |
| Supervisor | Bodnar, Judit; Sopranzetti, Claudio |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2022/tas_arjin.pdf |
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