Le Ray 437in restricted space, the PKK, were thus monopolizing the production of
rules of publicness along extremely tight grammars.
Reclaiming space
The lifting of emergency rule in July 2002 formalized an easing of the
repression of inhabitants since before 2000. If the repression did not
regain the intensity and the extensive forms of the 1990s, however, mili-
tary operations never really ceased in the mountains of Tunceli. The pace
of violence even accelerated after the PKK broke its five-year unilateral
cease-fire in June 2004.^31 Devices of control and surveillance thus were
transformed without disappearing. Of the six military checkpoints once
found on the road from the neighboring province of Elazığ, one remains
today. But Tunceli is one of the few Kurdish provinces in which identity
control at the entry is still systematic. Checkpoints are also maintained
between each district. As for city centers, these are generally safer than
before. Torture and extralegal killings have nearly disappeared^32 ; vio-
lence and harassment are generally less indiscriminate. Arbitrary identity
checks have ceased in the main cities of the province but streets remain
under the close surveillance of agents in plainclothes. People can now
gather more safely for demonstrations or meetings but police cameras
have multiplied and watch for any protest movements within the crowd.
ese transformations in the spatial discipline, as fragile and revers-Th
ible as they may have been since 2000, created some room for a renego-
tiation of the rules of coexistence between state agents and members of
the Tunceli community. After a long period of violence that has wrested
inhabitants from acquired social norms and principles, but in a politi-
cal context still characterized by an important fluidity and uncertainty
(Dobry 1992), conflicts over spatial devices and rules of daily interactions
are privileged tools in the reconstruction of publicness.
The nation-state and ideologically desirable reconstruction
At this stage, the nation-state had to be performed locally, not only as a
mechanism of the police but also as an institutional structure rebuilding