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Conflict understandings of lay people mirror society in miniature. Although lay people and their conflict understandings in society may shape the course of an ongoing conflict, little scholarly attention is so far given to the understandings of everyday discourse in Turkey’s ongoing Kurdish conflict. The present research aims to examine the views of lay Kurds and Turks in two politically polarized cities in Turkey, Mersin and Diyarbakır.

To examine these views, the authors used focus group discussions and open-ended questionnaires with a total of 64 lay people from Mersin and Diyarbakır.

Qualitative content analysis revealed more conflict understandings than presented in the existing academic literature. Furthermore, multiple correspondence analysis suggested that both ethnic identity and the city in which people live are important factors influencing how people perceive the conflict.

The meaning of novel themes, differences and similarities within and between ethnic groups and two cities, and the usefulness of qualitative methods to examine lay people’s viewpoints are discussed.