Kurdish Resistance to Border-Imposed Agricultural Land Dispossession and Commodification
A transmedia project exploring two centuries of Kurdish agricultural land dispossession and resistance, through a research paper, historical timeline, and short documentary.
By Sheelan Qader
MS Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management, May 2025
Research Question:
How have Kurdish communities resisted agricultural land dispossession and commodification?
Methodology
Compiled a historical timeline (1830s–2025) using academic sources, reports, news articles (English, Arabic, Kurdish)
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43-second video was created in Sorani Kurdish, with Kurmanji subtitles and English captions, explaining the research focus and inviting those who had experiences of agricultural land ownership, farming, or displacement in the borderlands of Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Turkey to come forward and share their histories. |
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Conducted 10 semi-structured interviews with Kurdish farmers and agricultural landowners (subsistence and commercial), across Bakur, Başûr, Rojava, and Rojhilat.
This dual approach enabled tracing both structural transformations and the lived, relational experiences of Kurdish communities with their land.
Following Visualization and Media tools were used:
Premiere Pro, After Effect, Photoshop, Geolayers 3, Flourish, Shorthand
You can explore the interactive timeline below: select a year (on the top left side of the screen) to see recorded events, and hover over each circle for a brief description.
(Fenner, 1830)
Kurdish agricultural land dispossession and commodification is an active project of political control, capitalist extraction, and imperial bordering. This comparative regional analysis unpacked how agricultural land became the site of layered violence across Bakur, Rojava, Rojhilat, and Başûr during four distinct but interconnected historical phases.
Phase one: Ottoman centralization and land reforms (1830s–1918)
- Centralization of power through military campaigns and dismantling of Kurdish emirates (Atmaca, 2019; Bayraktar, 2016)
- 1858 Land Code (Tanzimat) forced land registration (tapu) and shifted land from communal use to private taxable property (Ali, 1997; Maoz, 1966)
- 1847 Erzurum Treaty, in which Ottoman and Qajar authorities, with British and Russian mediation, demarcated the border between present-day Iran and Iraq
- Rise of empire-aligned landlords (aghas, sheikhs) who claimed communal lands under their personal names. (Atmaca, 2019)
- Peasants transformed into sharecroppers or renters, owing both rent to landlords and taxes to the empire.
Resistance Forms
- Armed revolts like the Zirki Uprising (1835) and Baban resistance (1845) rejecting taxation and conscription (Maoz, 1966; Atmaca, 2019)
- Customary tenure and oral land claims persisted despite state legal frameworks
- Peasant resistance through non-compliance and refusal to register land (Maoz, 1966)
- References
- Ali, O. (1997). Southern Kurdistan during the last phase of Ottoman control: 1839–1914. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 17(2), 283–291. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602009708716377
- Atmaca, M. (2019). Resistance to centralisation in the Ottoman periphery: the Kurdish Baban and Bohtan emirates. *Middle Eastern Studies*, 55(4), 519–539. https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2018.1542595
- Bayraktar, U. (2016). Restoring the Property: The Land Code of 1858 and Private Property in Ottoman Kurdistan. Old and New Worlds: the Global Challenges of Rural History, ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon, 27–30 January 2016.
- Maoz, M. (1966). Syrian Urban Politics in the Tanzimat Period between 1840 and 1861. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 29(2), 277–301. https://www.jstor.org/stable/611179
Phase two: Ethnicized Border Formation of Nation-States (1918–1958)
- Western and regional colonial imposed
Treaty of Lausanne (1923) fractured Kurdish communities across four state projects (Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria) - Western occupiers expanded control using Ottoman land records to reassign land and consolidate power in resource rich lands
- Legal reclassification of land (e.g., Real Estate Registration in Iraq, Syrian Land Law of 1945) (Ali, 1997)
- Arab and Turkish settler schemes; forced sedentarization in Iran (Vali, 2011)
Resistance Forms
- Sheikh Said Rebellion (1925) over exclusion from republican land policies (Bayraktar, 2016)
- Shikak Rebellion (1944) in Rojhilat challenged militarized land confiscation (Vali, 2011)
- Ongoing use of seasonal agriculture despite criminalization; collective refusal to participate in state programs
- Mahmoud Barzanji uprisings
- References
- Naguib, D. (2023, November 13). Iraq – Context and Land Governance. Land Portal. https://landportal.org/book/narratives/2023/iraq
- Vali, A. (2011). Kurds and the State in Iran. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Phase Three: Militarized Displacement Campaigns (1958–2003)
- Başûr: Anfal Campaign (1987–88) destroyed 4,000+ villages; mass displacement and land reclassification (HRW, 1994)
- Rojava: Arab Belt policy displaced Kurdish farmers and transferred 41 villages and and six state farms to Arab settlers (Tejel, 2009)
- Bakur: Turkish state military campaigns displaced 275,000–2 million Kurds (Aboutaam, 2024)
- Rojhilat: Post-1979 Iranian campaigns expropriated Kurdish majority land under security pretexts (Vali, 2011)
Resistance Forms
- Armed resistance by PUK and KDP (Başûr); PKK (Bakur)
- Return migration and reoccupation of villages
- References
- Aboutaam, S. (2024, November 7). The Survival of Kurdish Identity in Turkey. Human Rights Foundation. https://hrf.org/latest/the-survival-of-kurdish-identity-in-turkey/
- Human Rights Watch. (2004, November 3). Iraq: State of the Evidence – Chapter IV: The Forensic Evidence. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/iraq1104/4.htmJongerden, J. (2007). The Settlement Issue in Turkey and the Kurds. Brill.
- Tejel, J. (2020). Rethinking State and Border Formation in the Middle East: Turkish-Syrian-Iraqi Borderlands, 1921–1946. Edinburgh University Press Books. https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-rethinking-state-and-border-formation-in-the-middle-east.html
Phase Four: Neoliberal Marketization (2003–2025)
- Başûr: U.S.-led ARDI reforms introduced GMO seeds, monoculture, and contract farming (Sama & Jasim, 2023)
- Rojhilat: State agribusiness caused groundwater depletion in Kurdish majority areas (Hassaniyan & Sohrabi, 2022)
- Bakur: Turkish government activated Ilisu Dam displaced 78,000+ Kurds, erased heritage sites (Eberlein et al., 2010) and weaponized it against Rojava
Resistance Forms
- In Rojava, cooperatives, community farming and collective land ownership are challenging the capitalist agribusiness logics (Reynolds and Qader n.d.)
- References
- Eberlein, C., Heike Drillisch, Ercan Ayboga, & Thomas Wenidoppler. (2010). The Ilisu Dam in Turkey and the Role of Export Credit Agencies and NGO Networks. DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 3(2).
- Hassaniyan, A., & Sohrabi, M. (2022). Colonial Management of Iranian Kurdistan; with Emphasis on Water Resources. Journal of World-Systems Research, 28(2), 320–343. https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2022.1081
- Reynolds, Kristin , and Sheelan Qader. n.d. “(De)Colonization and the Global Food System.” In A Handbook for Decolonizing International Affairs, edited by Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and Sean Jacobs. [Manuscript submitted for publication].
- Sama, S., & Jasim, A. (2023). Imperialism and Iraq’s Agricultural System. Alameda Institute.
Despite the prolonged history of agricultural land dispossession and commodification, Kurdish communities have continuously resisted these processes
and that resistance clearly comes through in the voices of the people I interviewed.
"my grandparents still cultivate and harvest their crops to this day, as matter of fact, even through all of this instability, our relatives still send us olive oil and other things through the borders of turkey, these lands provided my relatives and tribe the ability to avoid the chaos of the civil war" (Rojava).
"our ancestors practiced
animal farming as a means of survival. Constantly on the run, they chose mountainous, remote areas
to escape military forces. Vegetable farming was seen as a way to settle and tie people to the land,
but Kurdish Alevis in my hometown leaned more toward animal farming, which allowed more flexibility
when it came time to flee again" (Bakur).
"There is a spiritual relationship between people and the land they come from... agriculture has always been important for achieving food sovereignty. That’s why the Baghdad government began destroying villages and displacing Kurdish people from their lands—because through agriculture, they had power to survive independently of the government. Moving people to urban areas was a deliberate strategy to strip them of that power" (Başûr)
Thank you!
- To my Kurdish community, with whom I learn through every interaction, this work is born from our collective knowledge and shared resistance.
- To the interview participants, I am deeply humbled by your generosity, time, and the powerful insights you entrusted me with.
- To my family and friends, thank you for your unwavering support, patience, and belief in me throughout this journey.
- To Professor (Kristin Reynolds, Pratik Raghu, Nidhi Srinivas, and Ana Baptista) thank you for your thoughtful guidance and support.
See the full timeline, paper, extended cut from the documentary, and more of my work here: linktree/sheelanqader. My contact details are also there if you’d like to get in touch or collaborate.
