Description
This study examines the PKK's adoption of suicide attacks as a form of necroresistance against the Turkish state's necropolitical practices, challenging conventional frameworks that attribute such tactics primarily to religious or nationalist motivations. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with 64 PKK fighters and archival analysis, this research demonstrates that the PKK's suicide operations emerged primarily as a response to systematic state violence against Kurdish populations.
Through a dual methodological approach combining qualitative interviews and archival research, this study reveals how the Turkish state's necropolitical practices—including torture, public displays of mutilated bodies, and systematic violence—influenced the emergence of suicide attacks as a tactical choice within the PKK's repertoire.
Key findings challenge prevailing theories that generalize motivations across different movements, revealing instead how suicide attacks emerge as complex responses to specific historical and political contexts of state violence. This study contributes to existing scholarship by demonstrating how suicide attacks represent not merely a military strategy but a form of embodied resistance against state necropolitics.
Neslihan Yaklav is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Queen's University Belfast, focusing on in technological warfare, militarization, and security ethics in case of Rojava. Her research integrates Critical Studies on Terrorism, Critical Security Studies, and Critical Military Studies frameworks to examine the complex dynamics between state violence, technological warfare, and resistance movements through ethnographic methodologies in conflict zones. She has convened academic panels and seminars focusing on gender militarism and Kurdish studies, while contributing to scholarly discourse through presentations at the Kurdish International Conference, European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), and Anthropology of Peace, Conflict, and Security (APeCS). Currently revising her article on PKK's utilization of suicide attacks for Critical Studies on Terrorism, Yaklav's scholarship addresses emerging questions in militarization, colonization, and technological warfare ethics, with particular emphasis on innovative methodological approaches to conflict research.
