dergi

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Kurdish tribes, tribal leaders and global processes:
the case of the Oramari in Hakkari
Images of the Kurdish tribes and the Kurdish people, be them from outside or
from within, are riddled with orientalist perceptions and imaginations. This
article aims to look beyond the essentialised images of power and relations of
domination within the contemporary tribal structures, especially relations
between tribal leaders and their followers.
The case study of the Oramari tribe in Hakkari investigates briefly the history
of the tribe and the connection between tribal names, genealogical links and
the area of settlement, tracing these through the end of the nineteenth century,
to the early years of the Turkish Republic and the 1930 uprising. It examines
particularly the emergence of three tribal leaders within the Turkish Republican
period. These leaders are found to reflect the particularities of the historical
and political developments of their own era, as well as political, economic and
structural changes within the tribal and social life in the region. The changes
among the three types of leadership point out the trend from a despotic and
autocratic ruler at the end of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the
Turkish Republic, to a modernist and integrative type through the period
between 1935-1979 and finally to a left-wing and Kurdish nationalist type after
the 1980s. How successful these leaders have been in terms of using tribal loyalties
and links for their own interests or for those of the tribal and/or ethnic
group is discussed with various examples.