A Kurdish-Speaking Community of Change : How Social and Political Organising takes Shape in the PYD-controlled Areas in Syria

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores current trends in social and political organising in Northern Syria, in areas controlled by the PYD. The research is built on discussions between eight participants from the Syrian Kurdish-speaking community living in the areas. While most discourses on Syria and the Kurdish-speaking community have a macro-political focus and produce racialising descriptions of “Kurdishness” in Syria, less attention is granted to bottom-up organising and the plurality of Kurdishness. Inspired by the writings of Frantz Fanon, Sari Hanafi, and Hamid Dabashi, I wish to highlight situated perspectives in relation to the ongoing developments. I conduct a ‘double research’ that challenges essentialising discourses of Kurdishness, and the thesis builds on partial and situated knowledge, which is combined with concepts of contentious politics, in order to deeply explore the field of tension between top-down regulations and bottom-up social and political organising within the Kurdish-speaking community in Syria. This thesis concludes that the opportunities and potentials of self-organising depend exceedingly on the PYD party. Furthermore the thesis unfolds the embedded paradox of the idea of Kurdishness in the organising methods and discourses in the areas.