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Abstract:
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This dissertation concerns the disabled veterans of the Turkish army who fought against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK ) guerillas as conscripted soldiers . While being valorized as sacrificial heroes , “ghazis ,” in the realm of nationalist politics , these disabled veterans also face socio -economic marginalization and demasculinization anxieties in Turkey , where discrimination against the disabled is rampant . In such a context , disabled veterans emerged as important ultranationalist actors in the 2000s , championing a conservative agenda around the issues of state sovereignty , democratization , and Turkey’s pending European Union (EU ) membership .
In this dissertation , I locate the disabled veteran body at the intersection of medical and welfare institutions , nationalist discourses , and cultural formations of gendered normativity to trace the embodied socio -cultural and political processes that constitute disabled veterans as ultranationalist political subjects . I approach the politicization of disabled veterans through the analytical lens of the body in order to understand how veterans’ gendered and classed experiences of warfare , injury , and disability are hardened into an ultranationalist political identity . Exploring the tensions between the nationalist construction of the disabled veteran body and veterans’ embodied experiences as lower -class disabled men , I show how the dialectic between political rites of consecration and everyday rites of desecration translates disability into a political force . By unraveling the ways in which disability caused by violence generates new forms of masculinity , embodiment , and political identity , I illustrate how the disabled veterans’ suffering is brokered into militarization and ultranationalist protest in contemporary Turkey . |