The Influence of Diaspora Politics on Conflict and

Authors: Latif Tas

Publish Date: 2017

Volume: , Issue: , Pages: 171-198

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Abstract

Kurds are the largest stateless ethnic group in the world and Kurdish diasporas have for many years tried to raise awareness of the Kurds’ situation both at home and abroad as well as lobbying for improvements to Kurdish cultural and political rights Many researchers believe that the diaspora is a safe environment within which “longdistance nationalists” are created and organised This chapter explores the potential role of Kurdish diaspora groups in ‘peacemaking’ and ‘peacebuilding’ processes within Turkey The underlying concern is how successful negotiations for peace and postconflict can be reached with the help of different stakeholders such as the diaspora Diaspora communities are not only idealistic protesters but can also act as positive agents for the homeland and create practical solutions for stateless communities Data for this chapter comes from ethnographic qualitative research which was carried out in multiple sites between December 2012 and February 2016An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the workshop on the ‘Diaspora as Agents of Global Cooperation’ Kate Hamburger Kolleg Centre for Global Cooperation Research 21–22 April 2015 Duisburg Germany the workshop on ‘The Kurds in the Middle East New Developments and Prospects’ 24 April 2015 SOAS London Middle East Institute LMEI University of London UK and the workshop on ‘Diaspora Mobilisation for Conflict and Postconflict Reconstruction Comparative and Contextual Dimensions’ 26–27 November 2015 University of Warwick UK It is an expanded version of a paper that was previously published in Open Democracy entitled “What kind of peace The case of the Turkish and Kurdish peace process” see Tas 2015 This chapter was also published as an article in the Review of Social Studies RoSS in 2016

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