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Refereed Papers/Journal Articles by William Gourlay

Third World Quarterly, 2019

The Kurdish population in Iran feels disenfranchised and excluded from the political system. Base... more The Kurdish population in Iran feels disenfranchised and excluded from the political system. Based on an original survey of Iranian Kurds, it is revealed that Kurds lack trust and confidence in the central government and do not exhibit any emotional connection with Iranian identity or the Islamic Republic of Iran. Overwhelmingly, survey respondents put their Kurdish identity and affiliations as the primary point of reference. This emotional and political disconnect with Iran poses a serious challenge to the incumbent regime. It is an affront to the official rhetoric of ethnic unity and Iranian solidarity that is reinforced by Islamic principles under the Islamic Republic of Iran. This has led the incumbent regime to opt for a security response to a clearly political challenge. However, as the survey data in this research reveals, the securitisation of Iran’s response to its Kurdish population is only widening the gap, and aggravating the situation. The securitised approach to Kurdish aspirations for inclusion and acceptance is a counterproductive strategy with significant risks for the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2018

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2018

Middle East Critique, 2018

The advance of ISIL amid the horrors of the Syrian civil war has given impetus to the forging of ... more The advance of ISIL amid the horrors of the Syrian civil war has given impetus to the forging of political solidarity among Kurds across international borders. This article examines Kurdayetî, pan-Kurdish identification, and the way in which it is shaped by ongoing crises in the Middle East. Amid chaotic events, previously divided Kurdish populations have increased cross-border interaction and co-operation. In northern Syria, Kobani became a bellwether of pan-Kurdish hopes and fears, and a rallying point, with peshmerga from Iraqi Kurdistan passing through Turkey to help relieve the ISIL siege of the city. Meanwhile, Kurdish political groups, particularly the PYD in Syria and the Kurdistan Regional Government, have made strategic gains, raising prospects, in some quarters, of Kurdish independence. Kurdish military forces also have won international recognition (and some logistical support) for the significant role they have played in fighting ISIL. This, in turn, has heightened concerns among regional states, chiefly Turkey, which is traditionally wary of political advances for the Kurds. This article incorporates ethnographic data gathered in 2014 and 2015 in Diyarbakır and Istanbul, to analyze the surge in pan-Kurdish solidarity, confidence and political assertiveness, and the implications these have for the Kurds and the states that surround them.

Ethnopolitics, 2018

This paper examines the intersection of oppression and Kurdish resistance to the state in Turkey ... more This paper examines the intersection of oppression and Kurdish resistance to the state in Turkey and the impacts these have on the formation of ethnic identity amongst the Kurds of Diyarbakır. It examines how repressive state measures imposed upon the Kurds, ostensibly to crush the PKK, rallied Kurdish political sentiment such that resistance to state hegemony expanded to encompass a much broader ‘popular resistance’. Resistance by ‘everyday’ Kurds to what they perceive as hegemonic projects, whether instigated by Kemalists or the AKP, continues to forge internal cohesion and highlight their differences from the majority Turks. In this way, resistance becomes a central pillar of Kurdish identity.

Commentary & Analysis by William Gourlay

Eureka Street, Vol 25, No 18.

openDemocracy, Aug 26, 2015

openDemocracy, Jun 19, 2015

openDemocracy, Dec 2, 2014

The Conversation, Oct 7, 2014

The Conversation, Oct 2, 2014

The Australian Financial Review, Sep 17, 2014

Eureka Street, Sep 23, 2014

Third World Quarterly, 2019

Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2018

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2018

Middle East Critique, 2018

Ethnopolitics, 2018

Eureka Street, Vol 25, No 18.

openDemocracy, Aug 26, 2015

openDemocracy, Jun 19, 2015

openDemocracy, Dec 2, 2014

The Conversation, Oct 7, 2014

The Conversation, Oct 2, 2014

The Australian Financial Review, Sep 17, 2014

Eureka Street, Sep 23, 2014

openDemocracy, Aug 28, 2014

The Conversation, Jul 11, 2014

$Research paper thumbnail of Kurds find a way forward through the chaos of a fracturing Iraq$

The Conversation, Jun 16, 2014

openDemocracy, Sep 27, 2013

Eureka Street, Jun 11, 2013

The Contemporary Middle East: revolution or reform?, 2014

The Levantine Review, Dec 2012

The Journal of Turkish Weekly, Oct 10, 2012

Stambouline, Mar 30, 2014

Eureka Street, Apr 12, 2011

This book examines the circumstances of the Kurds in 21st century Turkey, under the hegemony of t... more This book examines the circumstances of the Kurds in 21st century Turkey, under the hegemony of the AKP government. After decades of denial, oppression and conflict, Kurds now assert a more confident presence in Turkey’s politics – but does increasing visibility mean a rejection of Turkey?

Recording Kurdish voices from Istanbul and Diyarbakır, Turkey’s most important Kurdish-populated cities, this book generates new understandings of Kurdish identity and political aspirations. Highlighting elements of Kurdish identity including Newroz, the Kurdish language, connections to religion, landscape and cross-border ties, it offers a portrait of Kurdish political life in a Turkey increasingly dominated by its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Within the context of Turkey’s troubled trajectory towards democratisation, it documents Kurdish narratives of oppression and resistance, and enquires how Kurds reconcile their distinct ethnic identity and citizenship in modern Turkey.

Politics, Religion & Ideology

The Levantine review, Dec 12, 2012

Good fences make good neighbors, the old adage tells us, but on the other hand sharing and intera... more Good fences make good neighbors, the old adage tells us, but on the other hand sharing and interacting with one's neighbors, rather than excluding them, are activities that contribute to the essence of neighborliness. Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has received equal parts commendation and ridicule for his adopted policy of "zero problems with neighbors," and it can hardly be claimed that the neighborhood of the eastern Mediterranean is a happy one at present. Popular consensus would have it that the Levant is a region of unbridgeable divides and polarised communities, antagonistic to and incompatible with each other due to hardwired intolerance and enduring "ancient hatreds." Proponents of such a contention can point to a litany of events within living memory-enduring hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians, the Lebanese Civil War, the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, conflicts arising out of the Arab Spring-and claim "it was ever thus." Certain Western pundits may cast an Orientalist perspective on intercommunal strife in the Levant-such events would never happen in the "secular," "civilised," "advanced" West, they may claim-but it is an irony that the source of much of the strife is the pursuit of homogeneity-uniformity of language, religion and identity-that is a hallmark of the nation-state, an idea imported wholesale from the West. This irony is compounded by the fact that interethnic discord can only arise in the first place because indigenous ethnoreligious diversity-something that has been largely eradicated in the West-is still a reality in the Levant. Yet for all of the strife at the macro geo-political level that attracts the media spotlight, it is still the case that at a personal level intercommunal interaction occurs on a daily basis in the Levant. And for all the nation-building projects during the last century that were intent on molding and clearly demarcating traditions and distinct nations along ethno-religious lines, boundaries remain blurred and there remain overlaps where rituals, customs, religious practices and sacred sites are shared between different communities. Indeed, devotional practices, generally regarded as the starkest definitional markers separating communities, often provide the spaces that best allow intercommunal and interfaith contact. Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean: Christians, Muslims and

Routledge eBooks, Jul 11, 2023

The status of the Kurds, Turkey's largest ethnic minority, has been a question of enduring si... more The status of the Kurds, Turkey's largest ethnic minority, has been a question of enduring significance in the country's political life. Debates over and issues arising from the Kurds' attempts to assert their collective identity as a distinct ethnic group have resulted in considerable political and social upheaval since the Republic of Turkey 's establishment. This thesis interrogates how Kurds in Diyarbakır and Istanbul conceptualise, demonstrate and defend their distinct ethnic identity, and the extent to which they are willing and able to reconcile this with membership of the Turkish body politic. It analyses ethnic identity and citizenship as phenomena that are shaped and moulded by societal and political events. The study generates new understandings of identity and citizenship amongst the Kurdish populations of these cities. Specifically, the thesis examines the roles that language, religion, the tradition of Newroz (Kurdish New Year), Kurds' relation to l...

Nations and Nationalism

This article examines state-society relations and intercommunal dynamics in conflict, focusing on... more This article examines state-society relations and intercommunal dynamics in conflict, focusing on the case study of non-Muslim minorities in Iraq. It draws on interview data to analyse the lived experiences of Iraq's Yazidis and Christians before, during and after Islamic State (IS) rule. It finds that the attacks by the IS on Iraq's Yazidi and Christian communities not only caused considerable suffering but also led to a renewed crisis of faith in the Iraqi state and a further breakdown in relations with other groups, especially Sunni Arabs. However, Iraq's Yazidis and Christian have also demonstrated remarkable resilience in terms of returning to their ancient homelands and rebuilding their fractured communities. Together, these findings raise further questions about the legitimacy of the Iraqi state in the eyes of its non-Muslim minorities and the prospects of a peaceful multicultural future for Iraq.

This book examines the circumstances of the Kurds in 21st-century Turkey under the hegemony of th... more This book examines the circumstances of the Kurds in 21st-century Turkey under the hegemony of the AKP government and presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan. Recording Kurdish voices from Istanbul and Diyarbakır, it highlights the elements of Kurdish ethnic identity and the dimensions of Kurdish political aspirations in Turkey. Kurds have long occupied a troubled position in Turkey’s political landscape – where once their very existence was denied, now there is grudging acceptance of their presence and political organisations. Within the context of Turkey’s troubled trajectory towards democratisation, the book documents Kurdish narratives of oppression and resistance and enquires how Kurds reconcile their distinct ethnic identity with their citizenship in modern Turkey. Recent geopolitical changes in the Middle East have seen Kurdish political actors win global recognition and support, the effects of which have reverberated through Turkey. The book argues that although they may still mo...

Poligrafi, 2021

Focusing on 21st century developments in southeast Anatolia, this article examines the circumstan... more Focusing on 21st century developments in southeast Anatolia, this article examines the circumstances of minority communities within the contexts of the shifting dynamics of Turkey’s national project. Until the early 20th century southeast Anatolia was an ethnic patchwork. The early republican era saw efforts to “Turkify” through the promulgation of a national identity project asserting ethnic unity. From the 1980s, conflict with the PKK gave urgency to the notion that uniformity was paramount for national cohesion. In this milieu, ethnic diversity was suspect. Circumstances changed with the AKP government’s 2002 ascendance and the earlier emergence of Kurdish municipal politicians. This article documents how thereafter the re-imagining of the national project away from an exclusive ethnic categorisation allowed acknowledgement and accommodation of ethnic and religious diversity across southeast Anatolia. The chapter analyses these events in light of a backlash by nationalist politic...

The calm of early summer in Istanbul, aspirant Olympic city, has been disrupted in the last week,... more The calm of early summer in Istanbul, aspirant Olympic city, has been disrupted in the last week, with violent demonstrations grabbing headlines around the world. What started as a minor protest against a proposed building project in central Istanbul escalated dramatically, resulting in thousands of arrests, widespread destruction in the Taksim and Besiktas neighbourhoods and anti-government protests breaking out in other major cities.

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The equinox on 21 March heralds the arrival of the northern spring. The Kurds, and other peoples ... more The equinox on 21 March heralds the arrival of the northern spring. The Kurds, and other peoples of western and central Asia, know it as Newruz (Nevroz in Turkish). It is the start of a new year and they celebrate accordingly.

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

ABSTRACT Since the rise of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP), Islam has come to play a more pr... more ABSTRACT Since the rise of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP), Islam has come to play a more prominent role in public and political spheres in Turkey. This paper draws on ethnographic data gathered in Istanbul and Diyarbakir between 2013 and 2015 to highlight Kurdish attitudes to Islam. Following the electoral success of the AKP amongst Kurds in the general election of 2007, Kurdish actors have sought to incorporate Islamic sensibilities into their political offering in order to appeal to Kurdish constituents. Amid the AKP’s recent authoritarian turn and instrumentalization of religion, and the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), many Kurds have sought to redefine their relationship with Islam to clearly demarcate distinctly Kurdish religious and political spaces.

Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs

Abstract Using ethnographic data gathered in Istanbul and Diyarbakır, this article examines the K... more Abstract Using ethnographic data gathered in Istanbul and Diyarbakır, this article examines the Kurdish political movement in Turkey and its relationship with other minorities. Turkey, built on a premise of ethno-religious uniformity, long sought to deny underlying multi-ethnic and multi-religious elements and regarded its minorities as suspect. In recent decades, particularly under the government of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, AKP), broader discourses about national identity and the place of minorities opened up. In this expanded space Kurdish political gathered momentum. With time, Kurdish actors adopted a pro-democracy discourse that privileged human rights and multiculturalism over an exclusive focus on Kurdish rights. More recently, the political arena has shrunk again and the electorate has grown more polarised as the AKP government resorts to nationalist rhetoric and resuscitates an imperative of conformity. This article analyses how, within these shifting dynamics, the Kurdish political movement and individual Kurds acknowledge and protect Turkey’s multi-ethnic and multi-religious fabric. It argues that in doing so, Kurds seek to present an alternative, multicultural politics in defiance of the increasingly authoritarian and increasingly Islamic AKP.

Iran in the World, 2016

This chapter examines the foreign policy options available to Iran under President Hassan Rouhani... more This chapter examines the foreign policy options available to Iran under President Hassan Rouhani within the Mesopotamian neighborhood. It will focus particularly on Turkey, a fellow middle-power, non-Arab state in the Middle East, within the context of the shifting dynamics ofKurdish politics. Iran and Turkey may be seen as rivals in their immediate neighborhood.1 They also assume verydifferent poses in their relations with the West; Turkey is seen as a reliable ally of the West, while Iran is opposed to Western influence and involvement. Examining Iran’s position relative to Turkey in the region through a purely realist prism would posit that the struggle for power is the fundamental political factor that determines the foreign policy of both countries. This would mean that direct clashes of interest and one-on-one power plays are the prime determinants of the Iran—Turkey relationship. The election of Hassan Rouhani to the presidency in 2013, however, raised the prospect of a more cooperative and collaborative Iranian foreign policy. Iran—Turkey relations, which had warmed in recent years, looked set to further improve under President Rouhani’s purview.

Eureka Street, 2011

In light of the civilian uprisings that are rattling the Middle East, much has been made of the r... more In light of the civilian uprisings that are rattling the Middle East, much has been made of the republic of Turkey as a model for reform and democratisation in the Muslim world. By any measure, Turkey is the most successful Muslim democracy, however, if the Turkish ...

Eureka Street, 2011

On an island known to the Greeks as Prinkipo, Ayshe A-zakcam spends six months of the year attend... more On an island known to the Greeks as Prinkipo, Ayshe A-zakcam spends six months of the year attending a small stall beside a steep cobbled path. She sells home-grown plums, and apples, which she peels and quarters deftly with a sharp knife, to pilgrims passing en ...

Journal of Historical Geography, 2013

SIBEL ZANDI-SAYEK, Ottoman Izmir: The Rise of a Cosmopolitan Port, 1840-1880 (Minneapolis: Univer... more SIBEL ZANDI-SAYEK, Ottoman Izmir: The Rise of a Cosmopolitan Port, 1840-1880 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011). Pp. 288. 82.50cloth.82.50 cloth. 82.50cloth.27.50 paper.Sibel Zandi-Sayek's study of Ottoman Izmir discusses "the throes of tremendous physical change" (p. 1) through which the city was living in the mid-nineteenth century and "how people from a wide spectrum of society, Muslim and non- Muslims, subjects and foreigners, newcomers and long-term residents, merchants, investors, civil servants, and press reporters, engaged in the reorganization of the city's physical space" (p. 3). As argued throughout the work, "the complex interrelatedness of urban space, institutional practices, and civic culture in the context of multiethnic and multinational imperial polities" (p. 3) brought about a tentative, accidental, and contingent process of urban transformation (pp. 2, 4, 7, 194-195), engendering through conflicts and controversies the new urban space of Izmir (p. 5).The main contribution of the book to the literature on port cities of the Eastern Mediterranean geography is methodological. It describes cross-class, cross-religious, and cross-national encounters in the urban space (p. 1), but in contrast to most research, which starts from disconnected communities and/or identities to reconstruct the dynamics of the city's economic and social life, Zandi-Sayek's approach starts from a dynamic urban space resting on webs and/or sets of interests to depict both the differentiated and interconnected dynamics of urban life. Such a dynamic analysis as opposed to the typical static one lifts up the curtains covering city life and puts the research on a stable, rather than unstable, basis for a better understanding of "the rise of a cosmopolitan port" between the 1840s and 1880s.As the author focuses on "the multilayered, fluctuating, and contingent identities of Izmir's plural society" (p. 7), the city emerges as an arena in which individual or group interests were in a continuous process of conflict and negotiation. Such a perspective also highlights the people's agency in "the great transformation" of Izmir:I show how people negotiated and maneuvered between institutional boundaries at a time when the reformist regime was actively drafting more effective measures to close the loopholes within its system of rules. By recognizing the dynamic context of everyday urban politics, and the pragmatic actions and temporary alliances spawned in the process, this study highlights people's agency and opens up the possibility of observing the fluid and constructed nature of identity. It offers an empirically grounded reading of Tanzimat reconfigurations of identities and institutional norms that complicates and expands narrowly conceived interpretations of plurality in Ottoman cities. (p. 7)The author, however, raises questions about the general interests as well as individual interests. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 detail very well, in a very innovative framework, the transformation of Izmir's urban space into a "site for mediating and reconciling the divergent interests of private and public stakeholders" (pp. 26-27). In fact, from the eighteenth century onwards, as individual economic interests increasingly searched for ways to curb controls and limits on production and trade in order to form a market society, the conflicting interplay resulted in the formulation of a new governmental rationality in the Ottoman Empire (Tanzimat) and elsewhere. An environment of generalized market transactions required general rules and regulations, or public law, both to give individual interests more freedom (laissezfaire, laissez-passer) and to establish a concept of general interest as a scale of verification for governmental actions vis-a-vis the world of conflicting individual interests. In this context, the public law implying general categories would reveal the general interest and free the interplay of individual interests that did not transcend the general interest. …

Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2013

Review of: Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean: Christians, Muslims and Jews at Shrines an... more Review of: Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean: Christians, Muslims and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries . By Dionigi Albera and Maria Couroucli (editors), Indiana University Press, 2012, Cloth, 288 pp. $70.00 ISBN 9780253356338

Nations and Nationalism, 2022