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

拟议的研究旨在分析1990年代议会调查委员会关于国家暴力的知识生产形式和过程。20世纪90年代的土耳其经历了长达十年的系统性国家暴力，但这些暴力一直没有得到解释。1987年，在与库尔德武装团体库尔德工人党开始武装冲突后，库尔德地区宣布进入紧急状态，期间发生了数千起政治杀戮和强迫失踪事件，同时沿着广泛的酷刑、任意起诉和大规模强迫流离失所。被动员起来打击库尔德工人党的法外安全部队也参与了有组织犯罪。除了对库尔德人的暴行外，质疑国家法外行为的政治活动家和批评记者也同样面临犯罪和暴力。尽管这一时期的暴行十分严重，但一直没有有效的机制来追究责任。刑事案件仍然是徒劳的，大多数案件的结果是被告被宣告无罪。尽管官方否认和有罪不罚，议会调查委员会在20世纪90年代涉及国家行为者的几起暴力行为之后经常被利用。议会调查委员会是罕见的平台，在那里国家暴力受到包括受害者，证人，专家和国家代表在内的各方的监督。担任委员的各政党代表收集和辩论文件和证词证据，以编写最后报告，确定事实并提出政策建议。无论调查委员会的有效性如何，也无论官方对有关暴行的政策如何，一旦成立，它们就成为关于国家暴力的知识生产的重要空间。与将议会或公众调查视为补充官方话语和使国家合法化的学术研究不同，我认为它们是知识生产的机制，提供了对特定历史时期的国家、治理形式和国家暴力的见解。本项目重点关注为调查军队和警察内部特殊单位的暴力行为而设立的八个调查委员会，和国家赞助的准军事组织。我将分析调查委员会如何产生关于国家暴力的知识，根据什么文件和证词证据，以及通过什么核查和验证程序。我还将分析有关各方的真理主张，以及他们用来构建主张的修辞手段和话语。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，将有助于更好地了解他们在多大程度上挑战或促进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脱离在这一过程中出现的情绪来讨论。我将把委员会定义为认识论和情感论的场所，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，我将分析保存在议会档案馆中的选定委员会收集和生产的文本。其中包括他们的最后报告、听证会记录、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、我在档案研究过程中的主观经历以及档案创建和访问的政治和历史背景。此外，我将与选定委员会和现有委员会的专员和办事员进行面谈，以更好地了解委员会的行政和业务程序。

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.