Official Archives of State Violence: Parliamentary Inquiry Commissions on State Violence in Turkey

拟议的研究旨在分析议会调查委员会在1990年代关于国家暴力的知识生产的形式和过程。土耳其20世纪90年代的特点是持续十年的系统性国家暴力，但至今下落不明。在1987年库尔德地区与库尔德工人党武装冲突开始后宣布的紧急状态期间，发生了数千起政治杀戮和强迫失踪事件，以及普遍存在的酷刑、任意起诉和大规模强迫流离失所。为打击库尔德工人党而动员起来的法外安全部队也参与了有组织犯罪。除了针对库尔德人的暴行外，质疑国家违法行为的政治活动家和批评记者也同样面临刑事定罪和暴力。尽管这一时期的暴行很严重，但没有有效的机制来解释这些暴行。刑事案件仍然徒劳无功，大多数案件导致被告无罪释放。尽管官方否认并不受惩罚，但在1990年代涉及国家行为者的几起暴力行为之后，议会调查委员会经常被利用。议会调查委员会是罕见的平台，在这种平台上，国家暴力行为受到包括受害者、证人、专家和国家代表在内的各方的审查。作为专员工作的不同政党的代表收集和辩论书面和证词证据，以编制一份最后报告，确定事实并提出政策建议。不管调查委员会的效力和有关暴行的官方政策如何，一旦调查委员会成立，它们就成为有关国家暴力的知识生产的关键空间。不同于认为议会或公众调查只是补充官方话语并使国家合法化的学术研究，我认为它们是一种知识生产机制，提供对特定历史时期的国家、治理形式和国家暴力的见解。这个项目重点关注八个调查委员会，这些委员会成立的目的是调查军队和警察内部的特种部队以及国家支持的准军事组织在20世纪90年代犯下的暴力行为。我将分析调查委员会是如何产生关于国家暴力的知识的，以什么文件和证词为基础，通过什么核实和确认程序。我还将分析当事人的真理主张，以及他们用来构建其主张的修辞手法和语篇。分析他们定义国家和国家暴力的方式，以及他们提出真相主张的方式，将有助于更好地理解他们在多大程度上挑战或促成土耳其占主导地位的真相制度。调查委员会的知识生产过程不能与该过程中出现的情绪分开讨论。将委员会定义为认识论和情感的场所，我将分析委员会的情感方面，以及在调查过程中出现的情感如何影响知识生产过程。为了实现这些，我将分析议会档案馆中保存的选定委员会收集和产生的文本。这些包括他们的最终报告，听证笔记，文件和证词证据，以及媒体报道。我不仅会分析文本的内容，还会分析它们的形式、我在档案研究中的主观经验以及档案创建和获取的政治和历史背景。此外，我将与选定的委员会和现有委员会的专员和书记员进行面谈，以更好地了解这些委员会的行政和运作程序。

The proposed research aims to analyse the forms and processes of knowledge production on state violence by the parliamentary inquiry commissions during the 1990s. The 1990s in Turkey characterise a decade of systematic state violence that has been unaccounted for. During the state of emergency declared in the Kurdish region in 1987 following the start of the armed conflict with the Kurdish armed group PKK, thousands of political killings and forced disappearances took place along with widespread torture, arbitrary prosecutions and mass forced displacement. The extra-legal security units mobilised to fight against the PKK were also involved in organised crime. Besides the atrocities against Kurds, political activists and critical journalists who questioned the extra-legal acts of the state similarly faced criminalisation and violence. Despite the gravity of the atrocities in that period, there has been no effective mechanism to account for them. Criminal cases remained futile, with the majority resulting in the acquittal of the defendants. Notwithstanding the official denial and impunity, parliamentary inquiry commissions were frequently utilised in the aftermath of several acts of violence involving state actors in the 1990s.Parliamentary inquiry commissions are rare platforms where state violence is held under scrutiny by various parties including victims, witnesses, experts and state representatives. Representatives of different political parties working as commissioners gather and debate documentary and testimonial evidence to produce a final report establishing the facts and making policy recommendations. Regardless of their effectiveness and the official policy on the atrocity in question, once the inquiry commissions are formed they serve as crucial spaces for knowledge production on state violence. Departing from scholarly studies that consider parliamentary or public inquiries as simply replenishing official discourses and legitimising the state, I consider them as mechanisms of knowledge production offering insights on the state, form of governance and state violence at a particular historical period.This project focuses on eight inquiry commissions set up to investigate the acts of violence committed by the special units within the military and police, and state sponsored paramilitary groups during the 1990s. I will analyse how the inquiry commissions produce knowledge on state violence, on the basis what documentary and testimonial evidence and through what verification and validation procedures. I will also analyse the truth claims of the parties involved and the rhetorical devices and discourses they use to construct their claims. Analysing the ways in which they define the state and state violence and they produce their truth claims will provide a greater understanding on the extent to which they challenge or contribute to the dominant truth regime in Turkey. The knowledge production processes of inquiry commissions cannot be discussed separately from the emotions that emerge during that process. Defining commissions as both epistemological and affective sites, I will analyse the affective aspects of the commissions, and how the emotions that emerge during the inquiries affect the knowledge production processes.To achieve these, I will analyse the texts gathered and produced by the selected commissions which are kept in the Parliament Archives. These include their final reports, the hearing notes, documentary and testimonial evidence, and the media reports. I will analyse not only the content of the texts, but also their form, my subjective experience during the archival research and the political and historical context in which the archives were created and accessed. In addition, I will conduct interviews with the commissioners and clerks of both the selected commissions and the current ones to better understand the administrative and operating procedures of the commissions.