Abstract
Positionality matters in social scientific research. Qualitative scholars have long drawn attention to the impact of researchers’ multiple identities on research findings and knowledge production. They have also highlighted the intersectional, fluid, and context-dependent nature of positionality. In dialogue with this literature, this chapter acknowledges the ambivalence surrounding the insider/outsider dichotomy and focuses on being an “outsider”—as an ideal-typical category—when conducting ethnographic field research. Building on the author’s research experience among Kurdish religious elites in Southeastern Anatolia, where she was an outsider on many levels, it inquires about the challenges and advantages of the “outsider” position. Through vignettes and dialogues from the field it provides insight into how to navigate the fragile ground of such a position.
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Notes
- 1.
“Kurdish movement” includes the complex set of legal and illegal Kurdish organizations associated with the Kurdish struggle for greater political and cultural rights and political autonomy. It comprises the illegal PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan/Kürdistan İşçi Partisi/Kurdistan Workers’ Party), and TAK (Teyrêbazên Azadiya Kurdistan/Kurdistan Özgürlük Şahinleri/ Kurdistan Freedom Hawks), a PKK offshoot, and the legal HDP (Halkların Demokratik Partisi/Peoples’ Democratic Party), DBP (Demokratik Bölgeler Partisi/Democratic Regions Party), DTK (Demokratik Toplum Kongresi/Democratic Society Congress), and HDK (Halkların Demokratik Kongresi/Peoples’ Democratic Congress). The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by the government of Turkey, the USA, EU and NATO.
- 2.
My field research encompassed three cities in total: Diyarbakır, Batman, and İstanbul. However, for the purposes of this piece, I will be focusing only on my time and experiences in the former two (especially in Diyarbakır), as I did not occupy the same “outsider” position in İstanbul
- 3.
Note, however, that there were also Kurdish revolts in the Ottoman Empire, which took place as early as the nineteenth century, mostly against the centralizing reforms of the empire at the time (see Chailand, 1993).
- 4.
See details at: https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/turkeys-pkk-conflict-visualexplainer. Accessed January 10, 2020.
- 5.
There is no official ban on Kurdish language in Turkey but Kurdish has been de facto criminalized since the very early days of the Republic. (The speaking of Kurdish in public was outlawed between 1983 and 1991.) The current constitution, penned in 1980, recognizes only Turkish as the country’s official language and article 42 of the constitution states that no language other than Turkish can be taught as a native tongue to Turkish citizens. Moreover, since the coup attempt in 2016, scores of Kurdish-language TVs, newspapers, and Kurdish-language courses have been closed down by emergency decrees.
- 6.
While Kurds call Southeastern Anatolia “Northern Kurdistan” (Bakur), the Turkish media and politicians have, for a long time, called it “the region.”
- 7.
Not connected to the Lebanese Hizbullah, the Kurdish Hizbullah was engaged in armed conflict with the PKK throughout the 1990s. In 2000, the leader of the organization, Hüseyin Velioğlu, was killed in a police raid in İstanbul and hundreds of Hizbullah members were detained. They have managed to survive as an underground organization and in 2013 founded an Islamist political party with the name of Hür Dava Partisi (Free Cause Party).
- 8.
The Adıyaman-based Menzil has its roots in the Naqshbandi-Khalidi order and is currently one of the most influential religious orders in Turkish politics, with extensive networks all over the country.
- 9.
Sohbet means conversation in Turkish. In this context, it refers to pious reading circles where informal conversations with religious overtones take place.
- 10.
Established in the 1970s by Fethullah Gülen, a preacher in self-exile in the US since 1999 (due to charges of engaging in anti-secular activities), the Gülen movement used to be the largest religious network in Turkey. Called Hizmet (Service) by its followers, Cemaat (Jamaat) by some journalists and researchers, and Fethullah Terör Örgütü (Fethullah Terrorist Organization), FETÖ, by the government, the movement follows the teachings of Said-i Nursi, a Kurdish Sunni Muslim theologian who lived at the turn of the twentieth century. Between 2002 and 2012 they allied with the AKP to facilitate the latter’s takeover of key political institutions. At the time, the movement was accused of and criticized for using wiretapping, blackmail and fraud in eliminating rivals. The alliance started to crack in 2011 and reached a climax in 2016 when a clique in the Turkish Armed Forces attempted to undertake a coup to topple the government. Accusing Gülen for masterminding the coup the AKP has since started an all-out-war against Gülenists; thousands have been imprisoned and exiled, and the assets of Gülenist companies have been confiscated.
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Türkmen, G. (2023). Reflexivity and Positionality in Qualitative Research: On Being an Outsider in the Field. In: Şen, E., Sandal Önal, E., Sefa Uysal, M., Acar, Y.G. (eds) The Political Psychology of Kurds in Turkey. Palgrave Studies in Political Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33291-3_8
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