Description
Nation-state borders are far from fixed demarcations of community. The territory of a state may encompass the historical homelands of those excluded from the ideal imagery of the citizen. Spatial-legal logics in the use of political power differentiate between territorial spaces within the nation-state based on what is ascribed to them (e.g., culture, race, or ethnicity). Spaces with residents that do not align with the nation’s imagined core are consequently subjected to more repressive forms of governance. Kurds in Turkey constitute such a community. The state in Turkey has consistently subjected Kurds to laws and policies of control and discipline. This paper examines the spatial logic of state repression and violence during the Hendek (Trench) Operations in southeastern Turkey between August 2015 and March 2016. By securitising separatism and designating actors and regions as “terrorist,” the state legitimised violence not only against individuals but against entire communities and territories. The Hendek Operations exemplify this logic: lethal operations carried out by military and police forces, the use of heavy weaponry and air bombardments within the state borders, justified on the grounds of constitutional national security provisions. Conducted within the framework of existing law, these measures blurred the boundaries between legality and violence, resulting in widespread human rights violations, civilian deaths, and urban destruction. Beyond counterinsurgency, the operations constituted a spatial project aimed at dismantling Kurdish hometowns, erasing cultural memory, and facilitating neoliberal capital transfer in places such as Diyarbakır’s Suriçi district. Situating these dynamics within Turkey’s long conflict with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), the paper demonstrates how repression, violence, and law co-constitute one another in the governance of contested spaces.
