Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Kurds
- The Cambridge History of the Kurds
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Additional material
- Introduction
- Part I Historical Legacies
- Part II Regional Political Developments and the Kurds in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Part III Domestic Political Developments and the Kurds in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Part IV Religion and Society
- Part V Kurdish Language
- Part VI Art, Culture and Literature
- Part VII Transversal Dynamics
- 32 A People beyond the State
- 33 Kurdish Transnational Indigeneity
- 34 Kurdish Diaspora
- 35 The Women’s Movement in Kurdistan-Iraq
- 36 A Struggle within a Struggle
- Index
- References
32 - A People beyond the State
Kurdish Movements and Self-determination in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
from Part VII - Transversal Dynamics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2021
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Kurds
- The Cambridge History of the Kurds
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Additional material
- Introduction
- Part I Historical Legacies
- Part II Regional Political Developments and the Kurds in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Part III Domestic Political Developments and the Kurds in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Part IV Religion and Society
- Part V Kurdish Language
- Part VI Art, Culture and Literature
- Part VII Transversal Dynamics
- 32 A People beyond the State
- 33 Kurdish Transnational Indigeneity
- 34 Kurdish Diaspora
- 35 The Women’s Movement in Kurdistan-Iraq
- 36 A Struggle within a Struggle
- Index
- References
Summary
Self-determination operated as an organizing principle for national liberation movements around the world in the twentieth century. This was no different for Kurdish political movements assuming the principle that a nation is entitled to a state which exercises exclusive territorial control. National self-determination became the grounding of the right they claimed to establish the independent state of Kurdistan. Since the constitutive power of the state relied for its justification on the existence of a self-determining nation, Kurdish political parties emerging after the Second World War framed their struggle in terms of state formation. However, in the course of the twenty-first century, the emphasis on the Kurds as a people without a state became one of the Kurds as a people beyond the state. In this chapter, these contemporary political developments are discussed within a historical context. The chapter looks at the relation of Kurds and Kurdish politics with the state as an object and objective of political struggle. In so doing, it distinguishes between two strong currents in Kurdish politics over the last decades.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of the Kurds , pp. 805 - 828Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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