Understanding the Resistance: Researching Kurdish movements in Europe – while doing no harm
Dilar Dirik
The decades-old labelling of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as a terror group by the European Union and several European states has meant that much of the Kurdish freedom movement’s extensive political work in the diaspora has historically operated in a clandestine manner. This changed dramatically with the battle for the Syrian-Kurdish town of Kobane in late 2014. Following the circulation of images of Kurdish women who fought against the so-called Islamic State, thousands of researchers, activists, journalists, artists and politicians turned up at Kurdish community centres across Europe.