The state formation in eastern provinces in the early republican era: The case of the People's Houses

This dissertation examines the complex historical dimensions of state formation in the Republican era in massively Kurdish populated Eastern provinces focusing on the institutionalization of the People's Houses (Halkevleri), between 1932 and 1951. In the literature even though there are varying interpretations as to how successful or failed the state in Eastern localities it tries to penetrate, People's Houses have been put forward empirical evidences of an independently existing central and autonomous state. This study examines how the People's Houses in the Eastern provinces ruled by the exceptional state regime functioned and existed in encountering spaces, beyond binary oppositions such as success/failure, strong/weak of the state or mere obedience and silence or resistance of the people. This thesis first analyzes the discursive, political and administrative organization of the People's Houses in the East within the limits of the struggle and negotiation of state and local residents. Secondly, it draws an analytical picture of the dynamic and contested relations and phenomena in the physical space of Halkevleri. Third, it analyzes everyday forms of publicness and socialization in which the tactics and strategies of actors producing People's Houses' space are more salient. Finally, it examines the People's Houses and the state's violent practices of linguistic assimilation in the context of the state's boundaries of "inclusion and exclusion" and the subjects' multiple ways of coping. This dissertation demonstrates that People's Houses and the East are shaped and produced by multiple interactions and power relations in spaces of encounter.