Tensions were heightened during the Gezi protests that began in late May 2013, as I experienced in Istanbul. Arriving soon afterwards in Diyarbakır, I found the situation to which I had become accustomed entirely reversed. In my earlier travels to Turkey, Istanbul had been a city of sunshine and vibrant street life and Diyarbakır one of tensions and an overbearing police and military presence. But in June 2013, the buzz of Istanbul's central Beyoğlu neighbourhood was regularly disrupted by clashes between protesters and police, by water cannon and gas canisters, while in Diyarbakır I found a city basking in the early summer. Streets were crowded with shoppers and families going about their business; the oppressive mood of years past had apparently lifted. Teahouses and restaurants hummed at all hours. Paradoxically, the political temperature was as hot as it had been for a long time in Turkey, but Diyarbakır, historically an epicentre of confrontation and contestation, was uncharacteristically placid. When I remarked at the lack of police presence, someone told me they had all been sent to Istanbul to subdue the protests.

To this end, Istanbul and Diyarbakır serve as useful barometers of the political atmosphere in Turkey, reflecting shifting dynamics in the Kurdish issue as well as nationwide currents of political significance. This was apparent again when I returned in October 2014 and many Kurds were concerned about the emergence of ISIS and its attacks on Syrian Kurdish communities. The political temperature in Diyarbakır rose accordingly. In May/June 2015 both cities were adorned with the bunting of political parties of all stripes and the citizenry were correspondingly engaged.

Entering ‘the field’

In the course of my research I conducted formal interviews with thirty-six Kurds aged from twenty-two to sixty-two, from various localities in Istanbul and Diyarbakır, and from a range of vocations, from ‘business men’, a film-maker, teachers, cafe proprietors, journalists and an economist, to shopkeepers, a kebapçı (street-side kebab seller), an unemployed gentleman who professed Marxism and several who described themselves as self-employed.