Early one evening in October 2014, in the backstreets of the old city of Diyarbakır, I wandered past a group of four Kurdish boys aged between ten and twelve. Fingers raised in the V-for-victory sign, with steadfast looks on their faces, they were chanting, ‘Bijî serok Apo.’ Translated from Kurdish their chant means, ‘Long live leader Apo.’ They were brandishing the name of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), imprisoned near Istanbul since 1999. Returning home from work, or running errands, local residents smiled and nodded as they passed. Although delivered in everyday surroundings, the boys’ gesture was undeniably political.

As I continued on my way, their cries rang out in the dusk. I pondered what would drive small boys to do such a thing. Why would they want to evoke the name of a jailed political leader in a nameless backstreet? Their postu re and attitude were of defiance. It occurred to me that I recognised elements of resistance in the aspects of Kurdish identity that I was investigating – using the Kurdish tongue, Kurds’ stance on religion, the celebration of Newroz – and that those I spoke with consistently imparted a message of resistance. This is not something that I had come looking for, or expected, but it was apparent that resistance – to the state, to assimilation, to political circumstances, to Erdoğan's message – was an element of the Kurdish experience and posture. The PKK's confrontation with the Turkish military is well documented, but Kurdish resistance assumes myriad other forms, to the extent that it becomes a marker of identity.

During my time in Turkey, my eye became attuned to the numerous, minor, seemingly innocuous forms of resistance that occur within everyday life. On several occasions in Diyarbakır I was offered kaçak çay (literally ‘escaped tea’) that had been smuggled across the border from Iraqi Kurdistan. Locals assured me that this ‘Kurdish’ tea was far superior to Turkish brews. Drinking tea hardly amounts to a political activity, and assurances of its superiority were offered jokingly, but the fact of its provenance and the illicit means by which it reached the Kurdish cities of south-eastern Anatolia added a frisson of excitement to its consumption.