An Exploration of Lay People's Kurdish Conflict Frames in Turkey

摘要

Lay people play a central role in conflict resolution and peace processes. However, relatively little scholarly attention is given to the frames that lay people use to make sense of conflict and conflict resolution. As conflict frames of lay people at the local level might provide us a way to grasp the nature of the conflict and the frames of lay people reflect society in miniature, exploring the conflict frames of lay people can provide us information about the whole society. The current study explores the conflict frames of lay people in the Kurdish conflict context in Turkey. Entman's (1993) systematic frame analysis is used to approach the conflict frames and modified to comprise 5 domains: (a) problem definition, (b) source of the problem, (c) moral evaluation, (d) solution to the problem, and (e) barrier to the solution of the problem. Q methodology, which is suitable to uncover socially shared viewpoints, is used to explore socially shared frames among 71 lay persons with different ethnic backgrounds. The analysis reveals 4 distinct frames toward the Kurdish conflict. The meanings of these frames, their differences and similarities, the importance of conflict frames for conflict resolution and peace building, and the usefulness of systematic frame analysis of Entman (1993) in the conflict context are discussed.