PARAMILITARISM & ACADEMIA: AN INTERVIEW WITH AYHAN ISIK

By Akses Jerome Bekis & Daniël van Noord

For the past four years Ayhan Isik has been a PhD candidate at Utrecht University, as part of the NWO Project Paramilitarism, Organized Crime and the State. While only starting his academic career at the end of his twenties, he is now heavily engaged with the research community. He has an interest in Kurdish affairs in Turkey, and this shapes a lot of his scholarly activities.

Already during Isik’s Bachelor and Master’s studies in Istanbul the plight of Kurds in Turkey and their relationship with the Turkish state influenced much of his work. In addition to his studies he joined various non-scientific projects that dealt with these topics, for example victim interviews. The reason why he focused on the Kurds was that Kurdish issues were not adequately studied in the universities in Turkey, as these kind of studies were not allowed. Isik believes that academic research should have a very clear connection with society, and these projects were part of that connection. When Isik found the vacancy for his current PhD position it seemed to be a perfect fit, combining the topics and methods he had already engaged with at numerous occasions.

Currently, Isik studies the role of Turkish paramilitary forces during the Kurdish-Turkish conflict in the 1990s. This very recent topic is still politically sensitive, and this has complicated his entire research project, especially methodologically. Initially, Isik intended to interview perpetrators from the Turkish side, but as the conflict between Kurds and the Turkish state resumed this was no longer viable. After long consideration Isik adopted a victim-centered approach for his study. The network he built up with the work he did in the past and during his Bachelor and Master’s studies helped him find various people to talk to. Isik stressed the importance of his broad network, as without it he would have been left without any sources and no study to be done.

As part of the NWO Project, Isik has also travelled to different countries to present and discuss his findings and engage in debate with the scholarly community. He said he really enjoyed being part of a project, as the meetings with the other PhD candidates and his supervisors helped giving him new perspectives and reflections on his work.

In the short term Isik would like to finish his PhD project by successfully defending. After this he wants to continue to expand his research and increase the societal impact of his scholarly activities. In the long term, his biggest aspiration is to play a constructive role in the creation of a Kurdish Studies institute, which would focus on topics related to Kurdish affairs without categorizing it under Arabic, Turkish and Persian Studies as has been done until now.

We asked Isik for some advice for aspiring researchers. While he gave us multiple tips, the one that struck us the most was him reminding us that your background does influence your research. In his case it has certainly shaped his interests, but also shaped how he approached these topics. We should be aware of our background and make sure that it will never hinder us in uncovering the full truth.