Enacting Citizenship: Kurdish Women’s Resilience, Activism, and Creativity

This introductory chapter discusses what citizenship means for Kurdish women by reviewing existing literature on citizenship, activism, nationalism, and minoritized groups within the nation-state. It also discusses the methodology, research questions, and central arguments that form the groundwork of this book. In cases where citizenship is not a given, acts of citizenship can take different forms that disrupt the status quo of the nation-state, often through everyday practices and performances that have the ability to transform existing structures into a new political reality. For women, who not only operate in a politically restrictive environment but are also limited by a highly patriarchal society, access to public spaces in which citizenship can be produced is often even more challenging. It is therefore that this book uses more recent alternative theories of gendered, affective, and intimate citizenship to shed light on the creative actions with which Kurdish women forge changes in their communities, often in violent contexts and precarious conditions. It also examines the indigenous claims of Kurdish people who in recent years have asked attention for neocolonial programs of the states they live in, in which these states aim at managing, controlling, and appropriating Kurdistan’s environment, including its natural resources.