Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality is continuing the discussions initiated as part of the Forum for Social Peace and Freedom with a new gathering. Organised in collaboration with the Trauma Studies Association, the symposium entitled “Taking the Floor: Symposium on Collective Memory, Testimony and Trauma” will take place on 7–8 November.

On the first day, four panel discussions and a Policy Recommendations Session will be held at Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality's Ali Emiri Conference Hall. The second day will feature a Memory Walk covering the city's sites of remembrance, followed by the “What Remains in Our Minds/What We Remember Workshop”.

Over the two-day event, participants will discuss the impact of past violence, loss and enforced silence on individual and collective psychological life. Focusing on the connections between memory, testimony, mourning and justice, the symposium aims to provide a space for sharing and collectively addressing stories and experiences that have remained untold.

Opening Addresses

The programme will begin with registration between 9.15 and 9.30 am on 7 November, followed by opening addresses from 9.45 to 10.30 am. Speakers will include Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality Co-Mayor Serra Bucak and Nergiz Özdemir Eke, President of the Trauma Studies Association.

Language, Identity and Intergenerational Trauma to Be Discussed

The first panel, entitled “The Voice of the Silenced: Language, Identity and Intergenerational Trauma”, will take place from 10.30 am to 12 noon. Moderated by sociologist Dr Ronayî Önen, the panel will feature psychiatrist and author Azad Günderci, who will deliver a presentation entitled “Language, Trauma and Identity”, and psychologist Siyabend Aslan, who will speak on “Mother Tongue from a Psychological Perspective”.

Psychologist, author and intercultural psychology and traumatology specialist Dr Jan İlhan Kızılhan will join the panel online with a presentation entitled “The Silenced Word, the Mark Left on the Body: Intergenerational Trauma, Collective Memory and Epigenetics”.

Enforced Disappearances, Impunity and Mourning to Be Explored

The panel entitled “Loss and Testimony: Enforced Disappearances, Impunity and Mourning” will take place from 12.15 to 1.45 pm. It will be chaired by İrfan Ekinci, a social worker at the Metropolitan Municipality.

Human rights defender Sebla Arcan will deliver a presentation entitled “Waiting at Ground Zero: Trauma, Unresolved Grief and the Power of Testimony in Cases of Enforced Disappearance”. Handan Coşkun, Women's Secretary of the Human Rights Association (İHD), will speak on “Space and Bodily Perception in the Intergenerational Transmission of Grief: Sur”, while neuropsychologist and psychotherapist Masum Aydın will deliver a presentation entitled “Forbidden Grief: Pains Without Legitimacy!”

Women's Resistance and Memory on the Agenda

The afternoon session, entitled “Women's Resistance and Memory”, will take place from 2.45 to 3.45 pm. Moderated by Didem Aydemir, a sociologist at the Metropolitan Municipality, the panel will feature psychological counsellor and TJA activist Esra Kahraman, who will present “Geography, the Body and Mother Tongue: The Transmission of Memory and Healing Mechanisms among Displaced Kurdish Women in the Middle East”.

Rojda Bedia Akkaya of the Free Women's Movement (TJA) will also speak on “From Oppressed Lives to Collective Healing: The Historical Legacy of Resistance of the Kurdish Women's Movement, Communal Life and Distinctive Coping Mechanisms”.

Human Rights Violations, Bodily Memory and the Conditions for Repair

The fourth panel of the day, entitled “What Remains in the Body: Human Rights Violations, Bodily Memory and the Conditions for Repair”, will be held from 4 to 5.15 pm. The session will be moderated by Nihal Bozhan Özbek, a social worker at the Metropolitan Municipality.

Psychiatrist and human rights defender Dr Burhanettin Kaya will deliver a presentation entitled “Traumatising Silence and States of ‘Subjecthood’: From Perpetration to Participation”, while sociologist and trauma specialist Dilşen Özden will speak on “Tracing the Unspoken: The Speaking Body”. Political scientist Dr Pınar Dinç from Lund University will deliver a presentation entitled “Traces Left in Memory and Nature: Possibilities for Destruction and Healing”.

Policy Recommendations to Be Developed for Local Support Programmes

The Policy Recommendations Session, scheduled for 5.30–6.40 pm, will open with a brief presentation by the Metropolitan Municipality on its memory work and local support programmes for victims of human rights violations and families of missing persons.

Facilitated by Metropolitan Municipality adviser Dr Yasin Duman and psychologist Zelal Kocakaya, the session aims to bring together participants from different disciplines and institutions to share their views and compile practical policy recommendations.

The first day's programme will conclude with closing addresses between 6.45 and 7 pm. Speakers will include clinical psychologist Gizem Uyğur, a member of the Trauma Studies Association's Executive Board; Dr Azad Dildar Günderci, a founding member of the association; and Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality Co-Mayor Emin Ay.

Memory Walk to Take Place on 8 November

On the second day of the symposium, a Memory Walk entitled “Remembering, Bearing Witness, Keeping Memory Alive” will take place from 9.30 am to 1.30 pm. Guided by Derya Bozarslan from the Truth, Justice and Memory Centre, the walk will begin at Dağkapı Square and continue through Saray Kapı, the Four-Legged Minaret, Surp Giragos Armenian Church, Surp Sarkis Church, the Common Conscience Monument and the Armenian Cemetery.

The walk will explore sites that bear the traces of Diyarbakır's multi-layered history and collective memory, addressing a past shaped by denial, silencing, displacement and loss. Participants will reflect on ways of remembering what has been intended to be forgotten, bringing marginalised stories back into view and collectively reclaiming social memory.

The second day's programme will continue with the “What Remains in Our Minds/What We Remember Workshop”, scheduled for 2.30–4 pm.

Free and Open to Everyone

The symposium, which will feature panel discussions in Turkish and Kurdish, is free of charge and open to everyone. The Memory Walk, however, is limited to 20 participants. Those wishing to take part can register at the symposium venue on 7 November.