Türk ve Japon Modernleşmesi: 'Uygarlık Süreci' - Birikim

188■Kurdish tribes, tribal leaders and global processes:the case of the Oramari in HakkariImages of the Kurdish tribes and the Kurdish people, be them from outside orfrom within, are riddled with orientalist perceptions and imaginations. Thisarticle aims to look beyond the essentialised images of power and relations ofdomination within the contemporary tribal structures, especially relationsbetween tribal leaders and their followers.The case study of the Oramari tribe in Hakkari investigates briefly the historyof the tribe and the connection between tribal names, genealogical links andthe 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 examinesparticularly the emergence of three tribal leaders within the Turkish Republicanperiod. These leaders are found to reflect the particularities of the historicaland political developments of their own era, as well as political, economic andstructural changes within the tribal and social life in the region. The changesamong the three types of leadership point out the trend from a despotic andautocratic ruler at the end of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of theTurkish Republic, to a modernist and integrative type through the periodbetween 1935-1979 and finally to a left-wing and Kurdish nationalist type afterthe 1980s. How successful these leaders have been in terms of using tribal loyaltiesand links for their own interests or for those of the tribal and/or ethnicgroup is discussed with various examples.