Risky Areas’ of Diyarbakir: Normalization of the use of counterinsurgency strategies in urban restructuring
Tas’ doctoral project, “‘Risky Areas’ of Diyarbakir: Normalization of the use of counterinsurgency strategies in urban restructuring,” is an extension of her master thesis, which examines the normalization and generalization of the counterinsurgency strategies in urban policies in other parts of Diyarbakir. With her doctoral project, Tas was awarded the sowi:docs Fellowship in 2022. Her comparative ethnographic project hypothesizes that urban destruction, forceful displacement, dispossession, and urban redevelopment as counterinsurgency strategies, which were developed and employed in the context of the exceptional urban warfare in Sur, are turning into common practices by the Turkish state to subjugate the low-income Kurdish population living in clustered spaces that are deemed dangerous – “risky” – for the state.
Hard Facts
Projektdauer: März 2023 – Februar 2026
Fördergeber: sowi:docs
Projekt von: Arjin Tas
Supervisor: Ayse Caglar
Becoming a State Actor. Prison Officer Training in Accra, Ghana
Weberian ideals of the neutrality and loyalty to the office of civil servants are globally widespread notions that often form the basis for a deficiency discourse of the civil service in the Global South. My doctoral project aims to illuminate the production of the self-understanding of state actors and the relationships actors develop with ‘the’ state in the training of Ghanaian prison staff. Focusing on the process of creating a state awareness gives an insight beyond preconceived notions and questions global (western) ideals of a ‘functioning state’. While much work has been done on the state consciousness of civil servants in the social sciences, the process of becoming a state actor has not been addressed. When looking at the question on how a unified ethos is produced, Ghana is an interesting case to study as existing research with civil servants (including my own), has shown that despite diverse affiliations (ethnic, religious, linguistic), Ghanaian civil servants have a strong commitment to the ‘good of the nation’. Because the prison is an important part/ in the centre of ‘the’ state, I look at the development of norms and values in the training of Ghanaian prison staff. The transformation process of recruits into state actors is made visible by applying long-term ethnographic research in the Prison Officer Training School (POTS) in Accra. My project combines anthropological theory to state, related debates on bureaucracy and the civil service, and prison ethnographies. It contributes to the literature on prisons by providing insight into prison staff training that has received little attention so far.
Hard Facts
Projektdauer: November 2020 – Februar 2025
Fördergeber: sowi:docs fellowship
Projekt von: Marlene Persch
Supervisor: Tatjana Thelen