266 research outputs found

    National Identity Discourses in Contemporary Bahdinani Kurdish Poetry in Iraq

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    The dissertation examines how Kurdish national identity has been culturally constructed through the contemporary Bahdinani Kurdish poetry in Iraq, specifically from the first Kurdish autonomy after Adar Agreement in 1970 to the Kurdish Independence Referendum in 2017. The main aim of the study is to identify the transformation of identity discourses produced in Kurdish poetry in accordance with the nature of the relationship between the Kurds and the central government in Baghdad. The aim is to explore how Kurdish national identity was imagined and articulated during different phases of Kurdish nationalism. Based on Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (1991) on the relationship between literature and nationalism, this study analyses and discusses Kurdish identity discourses produced in Bahdinani (Kurmanji Kurdish) poetry. The examined period consists of three crucial historical phases (1970-1991, 1991-2003, and 2003-2017), each of which witnessed the emergence of a particular poetic trend in the Bahdinan region. For the first phase, under the Arab Ba’ath, the poetic work of two pioneer poets representing “Modern Kurdish Poetry” has been examined: Ebdulrehman MizĂ»rĂź and Mueyed Teyib. The second and third phases cover the period following Iraqi Kurdistan’s liberation from the Ba’ath (1991-2017). For these periods, Mihsin Qoçan and Burhan ZĂȘbarü’s poetry has been examined: one as a representative of “Modernist Kurdish Poetry” in 1991-2003, and the other as a of “Popular Kurdish Poetry” during 2003-2017. It has been demonstrated that during the first historical phase, Kurdish identity was mostly imagined through gendering Kurdistan as feminine, carrying geographical, cultural and historical significance. The identity discourses of this stage were characterised by spatial aspects and features of belonging and homeland, while discourses of resistance emerged in a mainly symbolic and indirect fashion. In the second phase, following the establishment of a quasi-independent Kurdish entity in 1991, the poetic discourses mainly focused on a critique of the Kurdish Self, especially after the Kurdish civil war in 1994 and the misrule of the newly created Kurdish Regional Government. In the third phase, after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 and the Kurds’ participation in Iraqi rule, poetic discourses, widely circulated through digital media, turned this time to glorify the Kurdish Self and humiliate the Arab Other in an enthusiastic manner

    The effects of a combined psychotherapy and physiotherapy group treatment program for survivors of torture incarcerated in an adult prison in Kurdistan, Iraq: A pilot study

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    Introduction: Survivors of torture have high rates of mental health problems and can experience a sequela of physical effects with the most common being persistent pain. Similar to survivors of torture, persons that are incarcerated have high rates of mental health problems, persistent pain and pain-related disability.The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of an interdisciplinary group treatment approach, involving psychotherapy and physiotherapy, with survivors of torture whom are incarcerated in a prison in Kurdistan, Iraq. Methods: A parallel group study design was used to compare a treatment group (n=11) and a wait-list control group (n=16). The treatment group participated in an interdisciplinary treatment service for a total of 10 weekly group sessions for each discipline.The primary outcome measures were symptoms of nociplastic pain, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Secondary outcome measures evaluated physical functioning, sleep quality, and general self-efficacy. Results: A statistically significant reduction in outcome measure scores was seen in all symptoms measured immediately post-treatment. Discussion and Conclusion: These findings suggest that a culturally and contextually appropriate interdisciplinary group treatment intervention for survivors of torture in a prison could be effective for short-term reductions in symptoms of anxiety, depression, PTSD, persistent pain, and function. The study has limitations including a small sample size, lack of long-term outcome measures, and an inability to isolate effect of each component of care. The study does demonstrate the feasibility of implementing research that follows international research standards and practices within under-researched settings and post-conflict areas

    CONSTRAINTS ON IZĀFA IN SORANI KURDISH

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    This study examines the distribution and the status of the izāfa particle in Sorani Kurdish (Central Kurdish). It uses a corpus-based analysis to investigate the forms and the pattern of distribution of the izāfa particle in Sorani, a dominant dialect of Kurdish among the Western Iranian languages. The study details an investigation of the appearance of izāfa in various NPs using a variety of data mostly from the corpus but supplemented by the grammaticality judgments of native speakers. I show that next to parallel properties seen in other Western Iranian languages, Sorani Kurdish izāfa shows a form alternation. I examine the morphological status of the izāfa and other nominal morphological features in Kurdish as well as the sensitivity of izāfa form variation to specificity in Kurdish NPs. I argue that the differences and distributional incoherence of the izāfa within Sorani and across Western Iranian languages calls for a morphomic approach, which can be formally described using a constructional approach to grammar. The study focuses on the following questions: What type of head does the izāfa mark? What is the function of this marker? What are the constraints on its distribution? What are the syntactic and morphological rules governing its distribution

    Improving Kurdish Web Mining through Tree Data Structure and Porter’s Stemmer Algorithms

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    Stemming is one of the main important preprocessing techniques that can be used to enhance the accuracy of text classification. The key purpose of using the stemming is combining the number of words that have same stem to decrease high dimensionality of feature space. Reducing feature space cause to decline time to construct a model and minimize the memory space. In this paper, a new stemming approach is explored for enhancing Kurdish text classification performance. Tree data structure and Porter’s stemmer algorithms are incorporated for building the proposed approach.  The system is assessed through using Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Decision Tree (C4.5) to illustrate the performance of the suggested stemmer after and before applying it. Furthermore, the usefulness of using stop words are considered before and after implementing the suggested approach
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