In 1909, the US Circuit Court in Cincinnati set out to decide “whether a Turkish citizen shall be... more In 1909, the US Circuit Court in Cincinnati set out to decide “whether a Turkish citizen shall be naturalized as a white person”; the New York Times article on the decision, discussing the question of Turks’ whiteness, was cheekily entitled “Is the Turk a White Man?” Within a few decades, having understood the importance of this question for their modernization efforts, Turkish elites had already started a fantastic scientific mobilization to position the Turks in world history as the generators of Western civilization, the creators of human language, and the forgotten source of white racial stock. In this book, Murat Ergin examines how race figures into Turkish modernization in a process of interaction between global racial discourses and local responses.
Behind a veneer of "disinterested" concern, death rituals reflect and reproduce patterns of socia... more Behind a veneer of "disinterested" concern, death rituals reflect and reproduce patterns of social and cultural stratification. This paper examines 296,483 death announcements published in a Turkish daily newspaper in a 60-year timespan. The content analysis of the texts shows that, first, the discourses around death reveal the complex overlaps between cultural boundaries and social stratification. Second, the patterns of social and cultural stratification in death announcements interweave with broad historical trends, making it possible to "read" societies through the lens of death. These historical trends map onto foundational issues, such as the gender gap, neoliberal transformations, modernization, and religiosity.
Nationalism presents a multitude of ways to talk about characteristics of its members and to view... more Nationalism presents a multitude of ways to talk about characteristics of its members and to view how these characteristics are formed in a timeless past. Populations 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 exception. While historical and contemporary examples of exclusion abound in Turkey’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 inclusion 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 overlaps between nation and religion may be negotiated, reinterpreted, or disregarded.
Turkey and Japan have comparable histories of modernization beginning in the nineteenth century. ... more Turkey 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.
How does “not looking like a Turk” affect belonging and exclusion in contemporary Turkey? Percept... more How does “not looking like a Turk” affect belonging and exclusion in contemporary Turkey? Perceptions of skin colour have the power to transcend socio-economic and national boundaries through experiences of racial otherness. This paper illustrates racialization by focusing on diverse groups of “outsiders”. Foreign-born professional athletes navigate a media field that mark them as permanent others, as demonstrated by media controversies around soccer player Mehmet Aurelio. Irregular migrants and African Turks undergo cumulative reminders of non-belonging in everyday encounters. This paper examines how a sense of racially motivated exclusion run through these experiences by (a) distinguishing legal citizenship from an immigrant’s symbolic belonging, (b) assigning immutable differences based on skin-colour perceptions, and (c) colonizing everyday life through microaggressions in both face-to-face and mediated interactions. Racialized microaggressions feed from a combination of historical residues – including Ottoman slavery and whiteness campaigns in the formation of Turkish identity – and contemporary global cultural flows.
A global academic division of labor plagues contemporary academic production. The epistemological... more A global academic division of labor plagues contemporary academic production. The epistemological implications assign southern knowledge to the status of “data” for the use of northern “theory.” The institutional consequences affect the training and promotion of scholars, and the distribution of academic resources. The persistence of global power relations in academic production is an indicator of the achievement of the West in establishing a Eurocentric relationship with the rest of the world. This paper looks at the manifestations of the contemporary academic division of labor in scholarly writing. We examine articles published in three international academic journals, based in Japan, Turkey, and the United States, and focus on the different ways in which authors use geographic markers, words that indicate that a title, an abstract, or a sentence is written in reference to a particular location—a country, a city, or another geographic entity. Scholarship in the North relies on a writing style that reflects and reproduces its privileged position in the global academic division of labor. However, southern scholars tend to write in a style that makes heavy use of geographic markers, which reflects their underprivileged position in global academic world as “case” or “data” producers for northern theory.
This article examines the perceptions of education in Turkey, which refer to a nebulous package o... more This article examines the perceptions of education in Turkey, which refer to a nebulous package of formal education and a cultured stance. Guided by the literature on symbolic violence, we argue that underprivileged groups misrecognize arbitrary hierarchies by considering them just and inevitable. Elite tastes have been internalized by other groups in a particular historical context of education and culture. We investigate the historical roots of this seemingly ahistorical constellation of power relations around education and then consider the implications for the neoliberal period. Then, we contextualize the responses to symbolic violence. Subordinate groups complicate the effects of symbolic violence by exhibiting diverse responses that range from outright submission to implicitly questioning cultural and moral boundaries, creating class and ethnic others in the process. This occurs by constructing cultural and moral boundaries, especially targeting the ‘vulgar’ culture of celebrities and Kurds.
The current study uses a series of focus groups and participatory methodology to investigate the ... more The current study uses a series of focus groups and participatory methodology to investigate the work experiences and needs of Turkish probation officers and their directors. All participants were employed at an office of Parole and Probation in Istanbul, Turkey. During the concurrent focus groups, officers (n = 57) discussed their daily work experiences and needs (Phase I). A follow-up focus group was conducted (n = 25) to discuss potential interpretations of the themes and generate solutions (Phase II), followed by a mini-focus group with the directors (n = 5) to explore their experiences with the probation system and officer training (Phase III). Officers identified needs for training, improvements of the work environment, professional support, and more thorough risk assessment tools. The follow-up focus group revealed that officers were highly motivated to improve their rehabilitative skills but felt constrained in supervising offenders in the punitive justice system. Several solutions generated through focus groups included mentoring programs to support novice officers, training programs to acquire interviewing skills, and team building activities and events to increase morale. The current study bridges the gap between officers and directors in the probation system and generates solutions to the occupational needs of officers. Researchers communicated those needs to the directors, and the study initiated action toward implementing rehabilitative training programs for officers with a particular focus on risk assessment and basic clinical skills. The study has direct implications for the improvement of probation practice and supervision in Turkey.
In contemporary Turkey, a growing interest in Ottoman history represents a change in both the off... more In 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 series Muhteşem 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.
Recent cultural consumption research has drawn attention to the emergence of the high status ‘cul... more Recent cultural consumption research has drawn attention to the emergence of the high status ‘cultural omnivore,’ that is, individuals who consume a wide range of cultural products, including the expected ‘high culture,’ but more ‘popular’ forms as well. Initially reported in studies conducted in the developed West, this study broadens the basis of comparison by investigating the case of Turkey – a non-western, predominantly Muslim, developing country with a long history of state-led westernization. Using data from a nationally representative survey of adults, the study examines 34 cultural tastes in three domains – music, food, and literature – and participation in five different cultural activities for evidence of an omnivorous pattern. The items used include indicators of ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture, as well as ‘local’ and ‘global/western’ culture. The results of a latent class analysis clearly identify an omnivorous group. A distinctive feature of the Turkish cultural field is that groups are largely defined by their orientation towards local versus global forms, with omnivores consuming both, in contrast to groups that restrict their diet to ‘local’ forms. Further analysis shows that, similar to studies in other contexts, Turkish omnivorousness is associated with higher social position, especially education and income. Omnivores also tend to be younger and more secular in their views towards the role of religion in the public sphere. The article concludes that, in addition to the high/popular distinction, the local/global is a critical symbolic boundary shaping cultural identities in Turkey.
There is a growing body of empirical research on national patterns of cultural consumption and ho... more There is a growing body of empirical research on national patterns of cultural consumption and how they are related to social stratification. This paper helps to broaden the basis of comparison by focusing on cultural patterns in Turkey, a developing, non-Western, and predominantly Muslim context. Our analysis of cultural tastes and activities using data from a new nationally-representative survey shows three broad cultural clusters that clearly map onto differential positions in the social structure and are largely differentiated by degree and form of engagement with Turkey’s emerging cultural diversity, particularly their orientation towards Western cultural forms. In general, local cultural modalities do not distinguish groups, attesting to the robustness of local culture. The results are discussed in light of previous work on cultural patterns in other national contexts.
Until the 1990s, the Kurdish issue in Turkey largely involved the Turkish state, an ethnic group ... more Until the 1990s, the Kurdish issue in Turkey largely involved the Turkish state, an ethnic group and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The 2000s witnessed community-level clashes between Kurds and Turks, signalling the Turkish population's rise as an actor in the issue. This paper makes two claims. First, communal clashes indicate that Kurdish identity is not an ethnic identity alone, but is experiencing a racialization process, based on four indicators: emphasis on physical characteristics in the definitions of Kurds; linking Kurdish identity with the absence of certain moral characteristics; the increasing assignment, rather than self-assertion, of Kurdish identity; and discourses of racial extinction. Second, the racialization of Kurdish identity corresponds to historical change in conceptions of diversity. Racialization became possible after a distinct Kurdish identity was recognized but normatively unwelcomed.
Death and rituals performed after death reflect and reproduce social distinctions despite death’s... more Death and rituals performed after death reflect and reproduce social distinctions despite death’s popular reputation as a great leveler. This study examines expressions of religiosity and constructions of death in Turkish death announcements, paying particular attention to gendered, ethnic, and temporal variations as well as markers of status and cultural distinction. Death announcements in Turkey occupy a liminal position between obituaries and death notices: Unlike obituaries, no editorial decisions are involved in their publications. However, unlike death notices, Turkish announcements are venues for expressions of culturally scripted individual decisions. These large and decentralized collections of private decisions display rigid genre characteristics involving formulaic phrases but also change over time to reflect social, cultural, and economic changes in Turkish society. The present study focuses on a sample (N: 2,812) of death announcements in a major Turkish daily newspaper (Hürriyet) from 1970 to 2009. Results show that death announcements in Turkey increasingly rely on an emotional tone of loss and bereavement that replace constructions of death in a more detached and distant language and that religious and secular preferences in the language of announcements are an important domain in which cultural battles are fought and the participation patterns of new middle classes are negotiated.
Popularly considered a great equalizer, death and the rituals around it nevertheless accentuate s... more Popularly considered a great equalizer, death and the rituals around it nevertheless accentuate social distinctions. The present study focuses on a sample (N = 2554) of death announcements in a major Turkish daily newspaper (Hürriyet) from 1970 to 2006. Out of the liminal position of Turkish death announcements between obituaries and death notices emerges a large decentralized collection of private decisions responding to death, reflecting attitudes toward gender, ethnic/religious minority status and cultural capital, and echoing the aggregate efforts of privileged groups to maintain a particular self-image. Class closures lead to openings for traditionally under-represented minorities, such as Jewish Turkish citizens and citizens of Greek or Armenian origin. Results reveal that signs of status and power in announcements are largely monopolized by men of Turkish-Muslim origins. Although the changes in the genre-characteristics of death announcements are slow, they correspond to major turning points in Turkish social history.
Downloaded from specificity of Turkishness, refugee scholars encountered contradictory demands an... more Downloaded from specificity of Turkishness, refugee scholars encountered contradictory demands and employed different strategies to respond to these demands.
In 1909, the US Circuit Court in Cincinnati set out to decide “whether a Turkish citizen shall be... more In 1909, the US Circuit Court in Cincinnati set out to decide “whether a Turkish citizen shall be naturalized as a white person”; the New York Times article on the decision, discussing the question of Turks’ whiteness, was cheekily entitled “Is the Turk a White Man?” Within a few decades, having understood the importance of this question for their modernization efforts, Turkish elites had already started a fantastic scientific mobilization to position the Turks in world history as the generators of Western civilization, the creators of human language, and the forgotten source of white racial stock. In this book, Murat Ergin examines how race figures into Turkish modernization in a process of interaction between global racial discourses and local responses.
Behind a veneer of "disinterested" concern, death rituals reflect and reproduce patterns of socia... more Behind a veneer of "disinterested" concern, death rituals reflect and reproduce patterns of social and cultural stratification. This paper examines 296,483 death announcements published in a Turkish daily newspaper in a 60-year timespan. The content analysis of the texts shows that, first, the discourses around death reveal the complex overlaps between cultural boundaries and social stratification. Second, the patterns of social and cultural stratification in death announcements interweave with broad historical trends, making it possible to "read" societies through the lens of death. These historical trends map onto foundational issues, such as the gender gap, neoliberal transformations, modernization, and religiosity.
Nationalism presents a multitude of ways to talk about characteristics of its members and to view... more Nationalism presents a multitude of ways to talk about characteristics of its members and to view how these characteristics are formed in a timeless past. Populations 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 exception. While historical and contemporary examples of exclusion abound in Turkey’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 inclusion 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 overlaps between nation and religion may be negotiated, reinterpreted, or disregarded.
Turkey and Japan have comparable histories of modernization beginning in the nineteenth century. ... more Turkey 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.
How does “not looking like a Turk” affect belonging and exclusion in contemporary Turkey? Percept... more How does “not looking like a Turk” affect belonging and exclusion in contemporary Turkey? Perceptions of skin colour have the power to transcend socio-economic and national boundaries through experiences of racial otherness. This paper illustrates racialization by focusing on diverse groups of “outsiders”. Foreign-born professional athletes navigate a media field that mark them as permanent others, as demonstrated by media controversies around soccer player Mehmet Aurelio. Irregular migrants and African Turks undergo cumulative reminders of non-belonging in everyday encounters. This paper examines how a sense of racially motivated exclusion run through these experiences by (a) distinguishing legal citizenship from an immigrant’s symbolic belonging, (b) assigning immutable differences based on skin-colour perceptions, and (c) colonizing everyday life through microaggressions in both face-to-face and mediated interactions. Racialized microaggressions feed from a combination of historical residues – including Ottoman slavery and whiteness campaigns in the formation of Turkish identity – and contemporary global cultural flows.
A global academic division of labor plagues contemporary academic production. The epistemological... more A global academic division of labor plagues contemporary academic production. The epistemological implications assign southern knowledge to the status of “data” for the use of northern “theory.” The institutional consequences affect the training and promotion of scholars, and the distribution of academic resources. The persistence of global power relations in academic production is an indicator of the achievement of the West in establishing a Eurocentric relationship with the rest of the world. This paper looks at the manifestations of the contemporary academic division of labor in scholarly writing. We examine articles published in three international academic journals, based in Japan, Turkey, and the United States, and focus on the different ways in which authors use geographic markers, words that indicate that a title, an abstract, or a sentence is written in reference to a particular location—a country, a city, or another geographic entity. Scholarship in the North relies on a writing style that reflects and reproduces its privileged position in the global academic division of labor. However, southern scholars tend to write in a style that makes heavy use of geographic markers, which reflects their underprivileged position in global academic world as “case” or “data” producers for northern theory.
This article examines the perceptions of education in Turkey, which refer to a nebulous package o... more This article examines the perceptions of education in Turkey, which refer to a nebulous package of formal education and a cultured stance. Guided by the literature on symbolic violence, we argue that underprivileged groups misrecognize arbitrary hierarchies by considering them just and inevitable. Elite tastes have been internalized by other groups in a particular historical context of education and culture. We investigate the historical roots of this seemingly ahistorical constellation of power relations around education and then consider the implications for the neoliberal period. Then, we contextualize the responses to symbolic violence. Subordinate groups complicate the effects of symbolic violence by exhibiting diverse responses that range from outright submission to implicitly questioning cultural and moral boundaries, creating class and ethnic others in the process. This occurs by constructing cultural and moral boundaries, especially targeting the ‘vulgar’ culture of celebrities and Kurds.
The current study uses a series of focus groups and participatory methodology to investigate the ... more The current study uses a series of focus groups and participatory methodology to investigate the work experiences and needs of Turkish probation officers and their directors. All participants were employed at an office of Parole and Probation in Istanbul, Turkey. During the concurrent focus groups, officers (n = 57) discussed their daily work experiences and needs (Phase I). A follow-up focus group was conducted (n = 25) to discuss potential interpretations of the themes and generate solutions (Phase II), followed by a mini-focus group with the directors (n = 5) to explore their experiences with the probation system and officer training (Phase III). Officers identified needs for training, improvements of the work environment, professional support, and more thorough risk assessment tools. The follow-up focus group revealed that officers were highly motivated to improve their rehabilitative skills but felt constrained in supervising offenders in the punitive justice system. Several solutions generated through focus groups included mentoring programs to support novice officers, training programs to acquire interviewing skills, and team building activities and events to increase morale. The current study bridges the gap between officers and directors in the probation system and generates solutions to the occupational needs of officers. Researchers communicated those needs to the directors, and the study initiated action toward implementing rehabilitative training programs for officers with a particular focus on risk assessment and basic clinical skills. The study has direct implications for the improvement of probation practice and supervision in Turkey.
In contemporary Turkey, a growing interest in Ottoman history represents a change in both the off... more In 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 series Muhteşem 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.
Recent cultural consumption research has drawn attention to the emergence of the high status ‘cul... more Recent cultural consumption research has drawn attention to the emergence of the high status ‘cultural omnivore,’ that is, individuals who consume a wide range of cultural products, including the expected ‘high culture,’ but more ‘popular’ forms as well. Initially reported in studies conducted in the developed West, this study broadens the basis of comparison by investigating the case of Turkey – a non-western, predominantly Muslim, developing country with a long history of state-led westernization. Using data from a nationally representative survey of adults, the study examines 34 cultural tastes in three domains – music, food, and literature – and participation in five different cultural activities for evidence of an omnivorous pattern. The items used include indicators of ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture, as well as ‘local’ and ‘global/western’ culture. The results of a latent class analysis clearly identify an omnivorous group. A distinctive feature of the Turkish cultural field is that groups are largely defined by their orientation towards local versus global forms, with omnivores consuming both, in contrast to groups that restrict their diet to ‘local’ forms. Further analysis shows that, similar to studies in other contexts, Turkish omnivorousness is associated with higher social position, especially education and income. Omnivores also tend to be younger and more secular in their views towards the role of religion in the public sphere. The article concludes that, in addition to the high/popular distinction, the local/global is a critical symbolic boundary shaping cultural identities in Turkey.
There is a growing body of empirical research on national patterns of cultural consumption and ho... more There is a growing body of empirical research on national patterns of cultural consumption and how they are related to social stratification. This paper helps to broaden the basis of comparison by focusing on cultural patterns in Turkey, a developing, non-Western, and predominantly Muslim context. Our analysis of cultural tastes and activities using data from a new nationally-representative survey shows three broad cultural clusters that clearly map onto differential positions in the social structure and are largely differentiated by degree and form of engagement with Turkey’s emerging cultural diversity, particularly their orientation towards Western cultural forms. In general, local cultural modalities do not distinguish groups, attesting to the robustness of local culture. The results are discussed in light of previous work on cultural patterns in other national contexts.
Until the 1990s, the Kurdish issue in Turkey largely involved the Turkish state, an ethnic group ... more Until the 1990s, the Kurdish issue in Turkey largely involved the Turkish state, an ethnic group and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The 2000s witnessed community-level clashes between Kurds and Turks, signalling the Turkish population's rise as an actor in the issue. This paper makes two claims. First, communal clashes indicate that Kurdish identity is not an ethnic identity alone, but is experiencing a racialization process, based on four indicators: emphasis on physical characteristics in the definitions of Kurds; linking Kurdish identity with the absence of certain moral characteristics; the increasing assignment, rather than self-assertion, of Kurdish identity; and discourses of racial extinction. Second, the racialization of Kurdish identity corresponds to historical change in conceptions of diversity. Racialization became possible after a distinct Kurdish identity was recognized but normatively unwelcomed.
Death and rituals performed after death reflect and reproduce social distinctions despite death’s... more Death and rituals performed after death reflect and reproduce social distinctions despite death’s popular reputation as a great leveler. This study examines expressions of religiosity and constructions of death in Turkish death announcements, paying particular attention to gendered, ethnic, and temporal variations as well as markers of status and cultural distinction. Death announcements in Turkey occupy a liminal position between obituaries and death notices: Unlike obituaries, no editorial decisions are involved in their publications. However, unlike death notices, Turkish announcements are venues for expressions of culturally scripted individual decisions. These large and decentralized collections of private decisions display rigid genre characteristics involving formulaic phrases but also change over time to reflect social, cultural, and economic changes in Turkish society. The present study focuses on a sample (N: 2,812) of death announcements in a major Turkish daily newspaper (Hürriyet) from 1970 to 2009. Results show that death announcements in Turkey increasingly rely on an emotional tone of loss and bereavement that replace constructions of death in a more detached and distant language and that religious and secular preferences in the language of announcements are an important domain in which cultural battles are fought and the participation patterns of new middle classes are negotiated.
Popularly considered a great equalizer, death and the rituals around it nevertheless accentuate s... more Popularly considered a great equalizer, death and the rituals around it nevertheless accentuate social distinctions. The present study focuses on a sample (N = 2554) of death announcements in a major Turkish daily newspaper (Hürriyet) from 1970 to 2006. Out of the liminal position of Turkish death announcements between obituaries and death notices emerges a large decentralized collection of private decisions responding to death, reflecting attitudes toward gender, ethnic/religious minority status and cultural capital, and echoing the aggregate efforts of privileged groups to maintain a particular self-image. Class closures lead to openings for traditionally under-represented minorities, such as Jewish Turkish citizens and citizens of Greek or Armenian origin. Results reveal that signs of status and power in announcements are largely monopolized by men of Turkish-Muslim origins. Although the changes in the genre-characteristics of death announcements are slow, they correspond to major turning points in Turkish social history.
Downloaded from specificity of Turkishness, refugee scholars encountered contradictory demands an... more Downloaded from specificity of Turkishness, refugee scholars encountered contradictory demands and employed different strategies to respond to these demands.
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Books by Murat Ergin
Papers by Murat Ergin
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 exception. While historical and contemporary examples of exclusion abound in Turkey’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 inclusion 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 overlaps between nation and religion may be negotiated, reinterpreted, or disregarded.
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 exception. While historical and contemporary examples of exclusion abound in Turkey’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 inclusion 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 overlaps between nation and religion may be negotiated, reinterpreted, or disregarded.