1. How Do We Understand Place?
Key Idea 2.a: People see, experience and understand place in different ways and this can change over time.
Learning Objective:
To explore how levels of emotional attachment to a place can influence people’s behaviour and activities in a place..

2. What are your first thoughts as you look at the photos on the next slides?

5. So – what did you think?
They are likely to have stirred up some emotions as you thought what each place means to you?
Memories are personal as our experiences are all unique to us and often memories are selective – we tend to remember our positive experiences and so are likely to have a strong emotional attachment to that place and vice versa.
You can also have “social” feelings” – what do you think this means?
Sports fans may for example have a strong emotional attachment to their team’s home ground.
Each think of a place that you have a strong emotional attachment to and be prepared to say why.
In the same way, people can have even deeper attachment to nations, especially if they have been exiled from their homeland.

6. What is Kurdistan?
After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War 1, Kurdish areas came under British Rule.
In 1920 the Treaty of Sevres made provision for a Kurdish homeland but this was never ratified by the Turkish parliament and the fight for a homeland continues to this day.
Kurdistan covers the mountainous areas of these countries, with an average height of 2,400 metres above sea level.
An old Kurdish adage states that the Kurds have “No Friends But the Mountains,” and for much of their history, the Kurds have found refuge in the surrounding mountains as their primary form of defence against external threats.
Source:

7. The economy in Kurdistan revolves around oil and agriculture
The Kurds now exist as an ethnic minority spread out between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, and strive to maintain a culture that has been rapidly absorbed by their host countries.
The Kurdish perception of place is strongly linked to their culture.

8. Kurdistan – an emotional attachment to place
The city of Rawanduz, some 24 miles from Erbil, with a stunning view and a fresh supply of sweet mineral water
Erbil, considered the capital of Kurdistan
The disputed city of Kirkuk
The Kurdish part of Iran

9. The struggle for a homeland
In 1992 after the first Gulf War, a Kurdish autonomous region within northern Iraq was created. This is as close as the Kurds have come to having their own independent state.
A Kurdish father and his babe in arms were among thousands of victims of a poison gas attack on Halabja in 1988 by Saddam Hussein’s regime.

10. Fighting in Syria has displaced Kurds.
"I'm from Kobane," says Salah, referring to the Kurdish village in Syria. "But I ran when ISIL came and attacked us. I stayed for three days at the Turkish border waiting to cross and now I'm here [in Erbil] working [in] construction," he says outside the high-rise he is helping to build. "Erbil is good, but you only have one home. If Kobane is liberated, then I will try to go back"
Source:

11. Diyarbakir, Turkey in October 2015, the streets of the old city burned as angry Kurdish youth protested against the Turkish government's refusal to help their fellow Kurds in Kobane, just over the Syrian border, as it came under attack from ISIL.
On the afternoon of October 7, the second day of the protests, Nezhat heard the gunshots from her small apartment. She knew her 19-year-old son, Suleyman, was out there, somewhere.
Nezhat's son was killed. "Being Kurdish is my history. It is my being and it is my life," she says. "Now when my two other boys go out its really hard for me. I feel crazy until they come home. We want a life for our children without any war, without any worry, without any fight. We want peace for our children"

12. "The people who speak Kurdish, can dream in Kurdish."
In Turkey Kurds have had there culture deliberately weakened. For example by being forced to speak Turkish and making it illegal for parents to give their children Kurdish names.
Language is perhaps the most significant battleground between Kurds and the Turkish state. For many Turkish Kurds, language, politics and identity are one and the same.
Until very recently, the Kurdish language was banned in Turkey. Speaking it on the street was forbidden until 1991.

13. Renewed hopes for a homeland
During the recent fighting against ISIS, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces have been vital. Iraqi and US governments have supplied them with weapons.
However in 2016 the Kurdish regional government decides to cut the pay of public service employees to tackle a deepening financial crisis.
In April The US begins paying salaries of the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters taking part in the anti-IS battles.
Kurds feel that the role they have played in helping to defeat ISIS has earned them a right to vote for independence.
"[ISIL] has new equipment, new weapons. The only reason we can fight them is we are fighting for our home."

14. A continued struggle for a homeland …
93% of Kurds in the autonomous region voted yes for independence.
Iran and Turkey are worried that this will cause uprisings within their own Kurdish minorities.
Iraq has suspended flights to Iraqi Kurdistan.
Iraq’s Parliament has asked Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to bring charges against Kurdish leaders who participated in the referendum and to send troops into disputed areas claimed by both the Kurds and Baghdad. Tanks have moved into Kirkuk.
Turkey and Iraq are conducting military manoeuvres on Iraq’s borders near Kurdistan.
Turkey has threatened to close its border crossing into Kurdistan, which relies on imported goods and food from Turkey.
Iraq and Iran are also undertaking joint military manoeuvres aimed at securing Iraqi control of three border crossings from areas controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government.

15. Research Task:
You are going to research a displaced ethnic group –the Kurds.
You need to include the following:
Who are the Kurds?
How many Kurds are there approximately?
Where are the Kurds located?
What is the issue?
How are the Kurds perceived by others?
What is their current situation?
What is the human and physical geography of their homeland e.g. landscape and economic activities?
Why do many Kurdish people have such a strong emotional attachment to their homeland?
Displaced means people without their own state.
Diaspora means the spread of an ethnic group from their homeland e.g. Jews form Israel or Kurds from Kurdistan.