Le Ray 431organize to create breathing spaces, challenge the dominant normative
system and subvert existing categories to produce new ones. What was
formerly kept hidden or silent, or considered illegitimate in public, can
force its way into the public sphere through these renegotiations of the
grammar.
will here consider that public spheres can emerge whenever rules I
governing coexistence and social interactions, definitions of social roles,
and categories to apprehend the environment are renegotiated through
spatial meaning-making processes. I focus specifically on the conflicting
renegotiation of these rules between inhabitants of Tunceli and the most
visible agents of regulation: local state agents in charge of surveillance and
security (policemen and soldiers). One should not forget, however, that
state is not homogeneous and that there is some diversity about how to
respond to the state among Tunceli inhabitants as well.
e first part of this chapter examines the impact of war on the Th
organization of local public life. The tightness of the spatial discipline
demanded by state agents seems to allow little room for inhabitants to
produce or even negotiate rules of coexistence and circulation. The sec-
ond part, which considers a power configuration in transformation,
observes how both state agents and people of Tunceli operate to reclaim
space. The staging and performing of, respectively, national and local
times and spaces, reveal a broader struggle over allegiances. But how does
this production of conflicting spatial meanings, thus displaying diversity,
concretely pave the way for renewed systems of mutual expectations and
allow for the possibility of the emergence of arenas of debate and con-
troversy? The last section of the chapter advances some tentative conclu-
sions, by showing how the inhabitants of Tunceli, who engage, more or
less intentionally, in struggles over “contested spaces,” challenge existing
categories of identification and interpretation within the surrounding
environment.^17
A space kept silent?
In Tunceli, inhabitants have experienced long-term political violence
and the consequent disruption of their daily lives. The PKK started its