Final Report Summary - VIOLEX (Violence expressed - a comparative study of testimonies of violence amongst Kurdish activists)
The project had as its aim to understand the violent dynamics in post-conflict societies and how violence is processed in everyday life. The more three decades of conflict between the Kurdish Workers Party PKK and the Turkish state forces formed the basis from which to elaborate on how Kurdish activists living in Turkey and Denmark expressed and retold their violent experiences, how they made sense of the violence and dealt with their traumatic experiences. Special focus was put on the activists' torture experiences, as these could define the survivors' social status, as well as access to rehabilitation and asylum. The adequate expression of the torture experience and the silencing of certain shameful experiences and the self-representation as a survivor without any psychological sequelae were essential for obtaining the highly respected social status of a hero within the Kurdish community. However, in order to obtain asylum, the right for adequate rehabilitation and other social welfare goods, a focus on the multiple sequelae, including psychological problems were essential. As techniques of torture become increasingly hard to detect and seldom leave visible marks on the prisoner's body, the truthful retelling has become of utmost importance. How may torture survivors convince their audiences that they speak the truth, when the experienced torture has left no visible marks on their bodies?
In this project, the researcher used different methodological techniques in order to access information on torture in Turkey, as well as to explore how the torture experience is expressed in different social and cultural settings. Besides collecting testimonies of violence and torture among former political prisoners and their families living in Turkey and Denmark, much effort was put into analysing 150 patent files of Kurdish torture survivors treated at the host institution, Dignity-Danish Institute against Torture (formerly Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims). These patient files, which encompass a time frame form the early 1980s until today were unexpectedly rich in detail and information. They provided a unique insight into the multiple sequelae, the changes of torture methods over time, as well as how discourses on suffering and rehabilitation have changed over the last 30 years.
Throughout her fieldwork on torture, Weiss has seen the need for developing adequate research methodologies in order to avoid emotional stress and secondary traumatisation in the researcher. She has therefore been granted funding by the Danish Research Fund to organise a conference on methodology and fieldwork on March 2013.
The research has been presented at several international conferences and workshops. Two book chapters (Pennsylvania Press and Routledge) will appear in 2013, two more journal articles are currently in progress. The researcher's focus on expressions of violence and the problem of truth has also led to a close collaboration with other researchers in Scandinavia and will be further elaborated in a three-year collaborative project funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
In this project, the researcher used different methodological techniques in order to access information on torture in Turkey, as well as to explore how the torture experience is expressed in different social and cultural settings. Besides collecting testimonies of violence and torture among former political prisoners and their families living in Turkey and Denmark, much effort was put into analysing 150 patent files of Kurdish torture survivors treated at the host institution, Dignity-Danish Institute against Torture (formerly Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims). These patient files, which encompass a time frame form the early 1980s until today were unexpectedly rich in detail and information. They provided a unique insight into the multiple sequelae, the changes of torture methods over time, as well as how discourses on suffering and rehabilitation have changed over the last 30 years.
Throughout her fieldwork on torture, Weiss has seen the need for developing adequate research methodologies in order to avoid emotional stress and secondary traumatisation in the researcher. She has therefore been granted funding by the Danish Research Fund to organise a conference on methodology and fieldwork on March 2013.
The research has been presented at several international conferences and workshops. Two book chapters (Pennsylvania Press and Routledge) will appear in 2013, two more journal articles are currently in progress. The researcher's focus on expressions of violence and the problem of truth has also led to a close collaboration with other researchers in Scandinavia and will be further elaborated in a three-year collaborative project funded by the Norwegian Research Council.