The Settlement Issue in Turkey and the Kurds ─ An Analysis of Spatial Policies, Modernity and War

Here Jongerden (technology studies, Wageningen U.) examines Turkey's practice of social and cultural engineering, which he feels is based on an idiosyncratic understanding of modernity. Armed with tools from sociology, political science, history and social geography, he analyzes the spatial perspectives of armed conflict, focusing on environmental deprivation (in the case of Turkish counter-insurgency), rehabilitation doctrines, the move toward a new spatial organization of the countryside, the use of colonization in control, and the manipulation of the relationship of people to what they claim is their land. Jongerden's maps showing relocation projects are particularly interesting. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Joost Jongerden, Ph.D. (2006) in Social Sciences, Wageningen University, is Assistant Professor at a center for technology-studies associated to the Wageningen University and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He has published extensively on the Kurdish issue in Turkey and on society and technology issues.