Settler colonialism at the border: Davide Grasso, ‘Ethnic or political cleansing? Identity, cultural heritage and demographic engineering in the Turkish-occupied territories of northern Syria’, De Europa, 7, 1, 2024, pp. 61-83 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler colonialism at the border: Davide Grasso, ‘Ethnic or political cleansing? Identity, cultural heritage and demographic engineering in the Turkish-occupied territories of northern Syria’, De Europa, 7, 1, 2024, pp. 61-83

07Sep24

Excerpt: Since 2016, the Republic of Turkey has conducted a series of air and ground military operations in the northern territories of the Syrian Arab Republic. The abducted motivation of these operations was the need to clear those areas of political organisations that threaten Turkish domestic security. The main target has been the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), that are classified as terrorist organisations under Turkish law. The YPG and YPJ were founded in 2012 as the armed branches of the Democratic Union Party (PYD). Turkey considers the PYD as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting a guerrilla war against the Turkish state since 1984. Another belligerent targeted by Turkish operations between 2015 and 2017 was the Islamic State (IS), a Salafist movement that controlled swaths of Syrian territory between 2014 and 2019. This study focuses solely on the Turkish operations targeting the SDF and the subsequent demographic engineering in the occupied areas. We will attempt to answer the following question: Which identification process is more relevant to understanding Turkish operations and the related demographic engineering policy?

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed