Abstract
The destructive force of war is tremendous, and the post-conflict public policy challenge is always immense. In cases of conflicts in the greater Middle East, where violence seems woven into the very social fabric, repair is hardly the goal; rather what is needed is an even more challenging fundamental reconfiguration. This chapter therefore argues that the political psychology approach is missing from the post-conflict negotiations and reconfiguration table is. Political psychology entails the analysis of psychological, socio-psychological, and cultural variables as they affect public and political attitudes and behaviors. Despite their active role in promoting peace, women and specifically mothers tend to fade into the background when official peace negotiations begin and the consolidation of peace and restoring public services becomes a formal exercise. Mothers can effectively facilitate a long-term process of social integration of demobilized combatants, their families, and repatriated refugees, who constitute the most stigmatized social categories in need of assistance in post-conflict public policies. Within the conceptual framework of political psychology and by highlighting the reconstruction of motherhood identity among waiting mothers of the PKK fighters in Turkey as a way forward to successful integration of stigmatized social categories, this chapter argues that a similar mechanism can be utilized for other cases in MENA as well.
This chapter is modified from a previous version published as “Psychopolitics of Motherhood in Post-conflict Public Policies: The Cases of the PKK and ISIS.” In Conflict and Post-Conflict Governance in the Middle East and Africa, pp. 163–188. Palgrave, 2023.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Adair, J. (2019). The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo: From dictatorship to democracy. In The Routledge history of human rights (pp. 375–391). Routledge.
Algan, C. (2021, January 23). Diyarbakır Anneleri Türkiye’ye Ne Kattı?. Kriter. https://kriterdergi.com/siyaset/diyarbakir-anneleri-turkiyeye-ne-katti
Aslan, Ö. (2008). Kaçınılmaz Ölümün Girdabında Annelik: Türkiye’de Annelik Politikası ve Barış Anneleri Deneyimi. Feminist Yaklaşımlar, 5, 1–25.
Aydın, D. (2019). Kürdistan’da Direnişe Dönüşen Yas: Cumartesi Anneleri, Barış Anneleri ve MEYA-DER Deneyimi1.
Aysan, M. F. (2018). Between risks and opportunities: Social policies in contemporary Turkey. In Turkish economy (pp. 101–120). Palgrave Macmillan.
Barrett, M. (2014). Women’s oppression today: The Marxist/feminist encounter. Verso Trade.
Brewer, M. B. (2001). The many faces of socialidentity: Implications for political psychology. Political Psychology, 22(1), 115–125.
Çağlayan, H. (2008). Voices from the periphery of the periphery: Kurdish women’s political participation in Turkey. In 17th annual conference on feminist economics, Torino, Italy, June (pp. 19–21).
Çağlayan, H. (2019). Women in the Kurdish movement: Mothers, comrades, goddesses. Springer Nature.
Caymaz, C. (2021, January 20). Turkish museum unmasks terrorist group YPG/PKK. Anadolu Agency. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/turkey/turkish-museum-unmasks-terrorist-group-ypg-pkk/2117089
Chatterjee, D. (2016). Gendering ISIS and mapping the role of women. Contemporary Review of the Middle East, 3(2), 201–218.
Collins, P. H. (2002). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge.
Comer, J. S., Furr, J. M., & Gurwitch, R. H. (2019). Terrorism exposure and the family: Where we are, and where we go next. In APA handbook of contemporary family psychology: Applications and broad impact of family psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 571–585). American Psychological Association.
Conover, P. J., & Sapiro, V. (1993). Gender, feminist consciousness, and war. American Journal of Political Science, 37, 1079–1099.
Cottam, M. L., Mastors, E., Preston, T., & Dietz, B. (2015). Introduction to political psychology. Routledge.
Diab, S. Y., Isosävi, S., Qouta, S. R., Kuittinen, S., & Punamäki, R. L. (2018). The protective role of maternal posttraumatic growth and cognitive trauma processing among Palestinian mothers and infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 50, 284–299.
Eisenstein, Z. R. (2004). Against empire: Feminisms, racism, and the West. Spinifex Press.
Elshtain, J. B. (1987). Women and war. Basic Books.
Gentry, C. E., & Sjoberg, L. (2015). Beyond mothers, monsters, whores: Thinking about women’s violence in global politics. Zed Books Ltd..
Göksel, N. (2018). Losing the one, caring for the all: The activism of the Peace Mothers in Turkey. Social Sciences, 7(10), 174.
Green, F. J. (2018). Empowering mothers and daughters through matroreform and feminist motherlines. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, 9(1), 9–20.
Healy, D. (2006). Poetry, politics and war: Representations of American war in Vietnamese poetry (pp. 114–130). Curzon.
Idris, I. (2019). Preventing/countering violent extremism programming on men, women, boys and girls. Institute of Development Studies. K4D Helpdesk Report 671. Brighton, UK.
Jaggar, A. (1991). Feminist ethics: Projects, problems, prospects. In C. Card (Ed.), Feminist ethics. University Press of Kansas.
Jensen, M. A., Atwell Seate, A., & James, P. A. (2020). Radicalization to violence: A pathway approach to studying extremism. Terrorism and Political Violence, 32(5), 1067–1090.
Karadag, H., & İsmail, S. I. K. I. (2020). Terörizmle Mücadele Yöntemi Olarak Kamu Diplomasisi ve İkna Süreçlerinin Uygulamadaki Rolü. Diplomasi Araştırmaları Dergisi, 2(1), 39–55.
Kaufman-Osborn, T. (2005). Gender trouble at Abu Ghraib? Politics & Gender, (04), 597–619.
Koehler, D., & Ehrt, T. (2018). Parents’ associations, support group interventions and countering violent extremism: An important step forward in combating violent radicalization. International Annals of Criminology, 56(1–2), 178–197.
Lakezi, A., & Curzel, S. (2016). Peace-building as mothering—Does one have to be a mother in order to ‘mother’peace. Conflict, Security and International Development, 1–3.
Lichter, S. R. (1979). Young rebels: A psychopolitical study of West German male radical students. Comparative Politics, 12(1), 27–48.
Miller, J. B. (2012). Toward a new psychology of women. Beacon Press.
Nwangwu, C., & Ezeibe, C. (2019). Femininity is not inferiority: women-led civil society organizations and “countering violent extremism” in Nigeria. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 21(2), 168–193.
OECD. (2016). Terrorism in OECD Countries. Institute for Economics and Peace. https://arpc.gov.au/wp-content/blogs.dir/3/files/2016/10/ARPC-IEP-Terrorism-in-OECD-countries-FINAL.pdf
Papen, M. V. (1997). Beyond “Kinder, Kuche, Kirche”? the depiction of women in Third Reich entertainment films (Doctoral dissertation, University of Bath).
Peterson, V. S. (1992). Security and sovereign states: What is at stake in taking feminism seriously? In Gendered states: Feminist (re) visions of international relations theory (Vol. 32). Lynne Rienner.
Roble, S. (2019). Women against Violent Extremism. The United Nations Counter Terrorism Committee. https://www.un.org/sc/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Open-Briefing-Statement-by-Sureya-Roble.pdf
Ruddick, S. (1998). ‘Woman of peace’: A feminist construction. In The women and war reader (pp. 213–226). New York University Press.
Schlaffer, E., & Kropiunigg, U. (2016). A new security architecture: Mothers included. A man’s world? Exploring the roles of women in countering terrorism and violent extremism (pp. 54–75). Global Center on Cooperative Security.
Schmidt, R. (2020). Duped: Examining gender stereotypes in disengagement and deradicalization practices. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2020.1711586
Shapiro, R. Y., & Mahajan, H. (1986). Gender Differences in Policy Preferences: A Summary of Trends from the 1960s to the 1980s. Public Opinion Quarterly, 50(1), 42–61.
Sikkens, E., van San, M. R. P. J. R. S., Sieckelinck, S. M. A., & de Winter, M. (2017). Parental Influence on Radicalization and De-radicalization according to the Lived Experiences of Former Extremists and their Families. Journal for Deradicalization, 12, 192–226.
Snow, D. A., & McAdam, D. (2000). Identity work processes in the context of social movements: Clarifying the identity/movement nexus. In Self, identity, and social movements (Vol. 13, pp. 41–67). University of Minnesota Press.
Taylor, D. (2001). Making a spectacle: The mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, 74–8.
Turshen, M. (2001). The political economy of rape: An analysis of systematic rape and sexual abuse of women during armed conflict in Africa. In C. Moser & F. Clarke (Eds.), Victors, perpetrators or actors: Gender, armed conflict and political violence (pp. 55–68). Zed Books.
Walby, S. (1989). Theorising patriarchy. Sociology, 23(2), 213–234.
Walby, S. (2005). Gender mainstreaming: Productive tensions in theory and practice. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 12(3), 321–343.
Yüksel, M. (2006). The encounter of Kurdish women with nationalism in Turkey. Middle Eastern Studies, 42(5), 777–802.
Zuhdi, M. L., & Syauqillah, M. (2020). Analysis identity fusion and psychosocial development: How the role of father, mother and son on radicalization within family. Journal of Strategic and Global Studies, 2(2), 4.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Khelghat-Doost, H., Arıboğan, D.Ü. (2023). The Psychopolitics of Motherhood and Political Violence: The Case of the Waiting Mothers in Turkey. In: Arıboğan, D.Ü., Khelghat-Doost, H. (eds) Constructing Motherhood Identity Against Political Violence. Contributions to International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36538-6_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-36537-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-36538-6
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)