İstihbarat Çalışmaları ve Araştırmaları Dergisi

Abstract

The PYD/YPG terrorist organisation continues its efforts to establish a terrorist state in Northern and Eastern Syria, the so-called Rojava. It is analysed that the state has made a certain progress especially in the fields of defence and public order. However, the activities of the PYD/YPG terrorist organisation in the field of culture and art have not yet been researched in Turkish academia. It is seen that the terrorist organisation attaches importance to activities such as internal and external propaganda, historiography, identity and culture construction that can be effective in the establishment and maintenance of the statehood. The Rojava Film Commune (Komîna Fîlm a Rojava - KFR), established by the terrorist organisation in the region in 2015, has so far produced numerous short films and documentaries, feature films and two television series. Audio-visual narratives offer the opportunity to produce secondary source anthropological intelligence to interpret the PYD/YPG's world of meaning and vision of the future. Anthropological intelligence is an intelligence gathering discipline that produces information in the socio-cultural field under the guidance of anthropological methods and concepts. Anthropological intelligence can be conducted interpretatively through primary sources such as field research as well as secondary sources such as novels, stories and films. In this study, four feature-length fiction films of the KFR were analysed from the perspective of anthropological intelligence through qualitative content analysis. The assets and capabilities of narrative, historiography and identity construction for the target state of the PYD/YPG terrorist organisation in Northern and Eastern Syria are interpreted.