“Am I a Real Kurd?”: Deconstructing Kurdish Identity

Abstract

The chapter gives a brief account of how Kurds retell the stories of themselves as the Other of authoritarian states where they have been subject to assimilationist policies, which have continued to some extent in their settlement countries, with, for instance, the closedown of the Kurdish channel Med TV, ordered by Turkey. But the overwhelming part of the chapter is devoted to the mechanism of “internal othering.” In different layers, Kurds make distinctions between the Self and the Other. Moreover, the Chapter demonstrates how they turn their concerns towards the political landscape in their settlement countries and demonstrate, through their positions, that they are no guests of the “hostland,” but equal citizens like any Swede or Briton. The final part presents the interviews in which it becomes clearer how the online community has impacted their lives and how the de-construction of Kurdishness online has made many of the participants abandon their essentialist position, which they have replaced with a more post-modern view of identity.