Between Majority Power and Minority Resistance: Kurdish Linguistic Rights in Turkey
Aims of the Study
The problematisation or de-normalisation of minority rights and minority resistance constitutes the overall aim of this study. This problematisation is done in two parts, first of which includes a deconstructive analysis using three binary oppositions: the minority and the majority; the individual and community; and the public and private sphere with special reference to language, a significant component of nationalist discourse. These binary and hierarchical oppositions construct the majority, individual and the public sphere as superior to the minority, community and the private sphere. These oppositions are intrinsic to the liberal nation-state discourse, which aims to homogenise the public sphere that is supposed to be individually inhabited by the citizens, who are, in fact, members of the majority. The critical analysis of the liberal nation-state discourse through the deconstructive movement serves the problematisation and de-normalisation of minority rights. This movement also forms the basis of the second part, which critically examines the relationship between power and resistance by the help of post-structuralist understanding of power. The post-structuralist perspective provides a tool for the analysis of transformative resistance that conceives power in a productive manner and generates emancipatory politics...
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