ABSTRACT
The process of participation in armed struggle is strictly associated with network dynamics. This chapter presents eight empirical cases to help verify the role of social networks in the passage to political violence: Sixo, Roza, Mehmet Karasungur, Ibrahim Bilgin, Mihriban, Cahide, Sevin, Bawer. The thesis of the chapter is that symbolic violence impacts on the move to political violence. The empirical evidence mainly suggests that interdiction of the Kurdish language at school produces the effects of symbolic violence on the participants in physical violence. The chapter pays attention to symbolic dynamics: the motive for recognition and symbolic violence play an undeniable role in the move to violence. The two contingent factors are added to social and symbolic mechanisms: proximity and path of violence. Indeed, whether socialization, polarization, 'asabiyya and symbolic violence lead to political violence or not depends mostly on two contingent processes are proximity of rebel forces to civilian population and historical configurations of local and regional violence.
