Suchergebnisse

Why this book should not have been written -- The republican conversion narrative -- Encounters with the "west" -- Race in early republican Turkey -- Close encounters and racial discourses -- Race in contemporary Turkey -- Conclusion

Nationalism presents a multitude of ways to talk about characteristics of its mem-bers and to view how these characteristics are formed in a timeless past. Popula-tions identified as nations imagine themselves as sharing a collective identity and social solidarity. They form discourses offering ways of stipulating what defines nations in terms of collective characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, and religion. In many cases, these outright exclusive characteristics are subterranean, appearing in implicit forms and frequently combining with official claims regarding the civic and constitutional criteria for national membership. Turkish nationalism is no ex-ception. While historical and contemporary examples of exclusion abound in Tur-key's political history, they are countered with official claims of equal and open membership. Often, these exclusions appear to be based on religion, as rules of in-clusion present a preference for Muslims from Sunni backgrounds. Based on two case studies, this article argues that the relationship between nation and religion is mediated through the racial exception. When racial otherness is present, the over-laps between nation and religion may be negotiated, reinterpreted, or disregarded.

This essay analyzes arabesk, a form of popular music in Turkey, as it pertains to debates around culture, politics, and modernity. I argue that arabesk, rather than being limited to discussions of music as an aesthetic form, reveals important issues as to the historical unfolding of discursive patterns that still very much outline the boundaries of cultural debates in Turkish society. The historic changes of arabesk music corresponds to turning points in the cultural and political history of Turkey. Furthermore, following the historical trajectory of arabesk makes it possible to analyze large-scale transformations in the ideological landscape of Turkey. In order to understand the complexity of these issues, it is important to trace the historical foundations of Turkish cultural politics, especially during the early Republican era (1920-1950), which was formative in establishing and maintaining an extensive regime of cultural classification.

AbstractTurkey and Japan have comparable histories of modernization beginning in the nineteenth century. They have since then produced modernities that are considered a mix of "Eastern" and "Western." Over recent decades, both faced the question of what comes after modernity and began manufacturing their versions of authenticities and cultural exports. This paper comparatively locates two symptoms of this process. "Neo-Ottomanism" refers to the increasing cultural consumption of Turkey's imperial past while "Cool Japan" emphasizes popular products in entertainment, fashion, youth culture, and food, intending to shift Japan's image to a "cool" place. Both projects, in different ways, are sponsored by the state; yet their reception in popular culture illustrates the vexed relationship between the state and culture: while states endeavor to colonize culture for their own interests, popular culture provides avenues to outwit the state's attempts. Popular culture's autonomy in both contexts has to do with the collapse of traditional hierarchies, which has paved the ways for the promotion and export of new identity claims. Local and global representations of neo-Ottomanism and Cool Japan differ. Internally, they are fragmented; externally, they are linked to international "soft power," and offer alternatives modernities in Turkey and Japan's regional areas of influence.

AbstractIn contemporary Turkey, a growing interest in Ottoman history represents a change in both the official state discourse and popular culture. This nostalgia appropriates, reinterprets, decontextualizes, and juxtaposes formerly distinct symbols, ideas, objects, and histories in unprecedented ways. In this paper, we distinguish between state-led neo-Ottomanism and popular cultural Ottomania, focusing on the ways in which people in Turkey are interpellated by these two different yet interrelated discourses, depending on their social positions. As the boundary between highbrow and popular culture erodes, popular cultural representations come to reinterpret and rehabilitate the Ottoman past while also inventing new insecurities centering on historical "truth." Utilizing in-depth interviews, we show that individuals juxtapose the popular television seriesMuhteşem Yüzyıl(The Magnificent Century) with what they deem "proper" history, in the process rendering popular culture a "false" version. We also identify four particular interpretive clusters among the consumers of Ottomania: for some, the Ottoman Empire was the epitome of tolerance, where different groups lived peacefully; for others, the imperial past represents Turkish and/or Islamic identities; and finally, critics see the empire as a burden on contemporary Turkey.

Objective. In the wake of Turkey's EU candidacy and the U.S.‐led war in Iraq, Turkey's Kurdish question has drawn international attention. Due to previous data limitations, ours is the first article to analyze what explains anti‐Kurdish beliefs in Turkey using nationally representative survey data.Methods. Through descriptive analyses and partial proportional odds models of the Pew Global Attitudes Survey (2002), we examine the extent and sources of these beliefs.Results. We find high levels of anti‐Kurdish beliefs in Turkey, but little evidence of group competition/material interests shaping these beliefs; rather, nationalism, secularism, and, somewhat surprisingly, favorable evaluations of globalization better explain anti‐Kurdish beliefs.Conclusion. Although broad processes of social‐dominance orientation and authoritarianism may be factors working in the background, anti‐Kurdish beliefs are better explained by the peculiar case of modernization in Turkey and these anti‐Kurdish beliefs may be different from negative beliefs about other minorities.