Demet Lüküslü
I am a Professor of Sociology at Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey. I received my PhD degree in Sociology at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France in 2005. I teach courses on sociology of youth, social movements, political sociology and globalization.
My research focuses on the political participation of young people in Turkey (in comparison with European and Middle Eastern young generation). I am the author of Türkiye’de “Gençlik Miti”: 1980 Sonrası Türkiye Gençliği (The “myth of youth” in Turkey: The post-1980 youth in Turkey) (İletişim Yayınları, 2009; 2013; 2014) which deals with the question of the political “apathy” of the post-1980 generation in comparative perspective with the previous generations of modern Turkey. I argue that “youth” and “generation” are among the key concepts for understanding modern Turkey. I am also the co-editor of an edited volume in Turkish as Gençlik Halleri: 2000’li Yıllar Türkiyesi’nde Genç Olmak (The States of Youth: To be young in Turkey of the year 2000s) (Efil Yayınları, 2013). My qualitative studies on young people led me to not only sociology of youth and generation but also to sociology of subcultures and also to sociology of everyday life and gender studies. The active usage of the new information technologies of the young generation also led me to internet studies whereas the intertextuality and the references to the popular culture in political slogans of the young generation in Turkey led me to studies on the popular culture. My research also has a strong historical aspect dealing with the history of youth and history of education (with a special focus on the history of physical education and of the body).
My articles have recently appeared in journals such as Youth & Society, New Perspectives on Turkey, The International Journal of the History of Sport, Cahiers d’Etudes sur la Méditerranée Orientale et le Monde Turco-Iranien (CEMOTI), Grande Europe, EurOrient and Toplum ve Bilim. I also regularly author reports and edited book chapters.
During the fall semester of the academic year 2011-2012 (September 2011-February 2012), I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands where I conducted research on the archives of the institute on the 68 generation of Turkey. The final product of this visit was a book I authored in Turkish: Türkiye'nin 68'i: Bir Kuşağın Sosyolojik Analizi (Turkey's 68: Sociological Analysis of a Generation) (Dipnot Yayınları, 2015). In January 2014, I was a visiting instructor at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France. Between 1 May 2015-30 April 2018, I worked as a researcher in a Horizon 2020 project “PARTISPACE: Spaces and Styles of Participation. Formal, non-formal and informal possibilities of young people’s participation in European cities” (www.partispace.eu). On 4 February 2019, I was invited to give a Master Class (MC) on Turkey's 68 at International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at Justus-Liebig Universitat, Giessen (see https://www.uni-giessen.de/faculties/gcsc/gcsc/events/semesteroverview/WinterTerm1819/master-classes/mc-lukuslu).
Supervisors: François Dubet
My research focuses on the political participation of young people in Turkey (in comparison with European and Middle Eastern young generation). I am the author of Türkiye’de “Gençlik Miti”: 1980 Sonrası Türkiye Gençliği (The “myth of youth” in Turkey: The post-1980 youth in Turkey) (İletişim Yayınları, 2009; 2013; 2014) which deals with the question of the political “apathy” of the post-1980 generation in comparative perspective with the previous generations of modern Turkey. I argue that “youth” and “generation” are among the key concepts for understanding modern Turkey. I am also the co-editor of an edited volume in Turkish as Gençlik Halleri: 2000’li Yıllar Türkiyesi’nde Genç Olmak (The States of Youth: To be young in Turkey of the year 2000s) (Efil Yayınları, 2013). My qualitative studies on young people led me to not only sociology of youth and generation but also to sociology of subcultures and also to sociology of everyday life and gender studies. The active usage of the new information technologies of the young generation also led me to internet studies whereas the intertextuality and the references to the popular culture in political slogans of the young generation in Turkey led me to studies on the popular culture. My research also has a strong historical aspect dealing with the history of youth and history of education (with a special focus on the history of physical education and of the body).
My articles have recently appeared in journals such as Youth & Society, New Perspectives on Turkey, The International Journal of the History of Sport, Cahiers d’Etudes sur la Méditerranée Orientale et le Monde Turco-Iranien (CEMOTI), Grande Europe, EurOrient and Toplum ve Bilim. I also regularly author reports and edited book chapters.
During the fall semester of the academic year 2011-2012 (September 2011-February 2012), I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands where I conducted research on the archives of the institute on the 68 generation of Turkey. The final product of this visit was a book I authored in Turkish: Türkiye'nin 68'i: Bir Kuşağın Sosyolojik Analizi (Turkey's 68: Sociological Analysis of a Generation) (Dipnot Yayınları, 2015). In January 2014, I was a visiting instructor at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France. Between 1 May 2015-30 April 2018, I worked as a researcher in a Horizon 2020 project “PARTISPACE: Spaces and Styles of Participation. Formal, non-formal and informal possibilities of young people’s participation in European cities” (www.partispace.eu). On 4 February 2019, I was invited to give a Master Class (MC) on Turkey's 68 at International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at Justus-Liebig Universitat, Giessen (see https://www.uni-giessen.de/faculties/gcsc/gcsc/events/semesteroverview/WinterTerm1819/master-classes/mc-lukuslu).
Supervisors: François Dubet
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Book Chapters by Demet Lüküslü
Türkiye’deki 1980 sonrası gençliğini, yeni bir mit yaratmadan ya da küçümsemeden tartışmaya özen gösteriyor.
only was Turkey a devout NATO ally, as a neighboring country of
the Soviet Union during the Cold War era, but also because Turkey
consequently found itself experiencing extremes leading to
political polarization and violence in the late 1960s and 1970s.
The 1968 generation in Turkey first emerged as a student
movement focusing on reform within the university system, but
towards the end of the 60s, it evolved into a revolutionary
movement, eventually fighting for the use of revolutionary
violence after the military intervention of 1971. This paper argues
that the dominant discourses of the period, such as the myth of
youth, anti-imperialist, modernist, and developmentalist
discourses, and the martyrdom discourse meld perfectly with a
masculine discourse and underlines the importance of introducing
masculinity studies for a deeper understanding of Turkey’s 1968.
‘Masculinity’ is indeed a keyword for rethinking the 1960s and
1968 generation in Turkey, as well as rethinking the Turkish political culture within which masculine discourse occupies an
important place. In light of the works of Raewyn Connell, who
argues that “gender relations are a major component of social
structure as a whole, and gender politics are among the main
determinants of our collective fate”, it is argued in this paper that
Turkey’s 1968 cannot be understood without “constantly moving
towards gender (1995:76)”. The paper discusses how the Turkish
1968 student movement did not only instrumentalize a masculine
discourse but also that it is possible to observe a war of
masculinities. Turkey’s 1968 generation’s masculinity was
constructed in relation to the colonial masculinity of the United
States as symbolized by the demonstrations against the Six Fleet
of the US navy in Istanbul.
The 68 generation in Turkey starting as a student movement- which in time turns into a revolutionary one- melds different discourses (“myth of youth” discourse, anti-imperialist discourse, modernist and developmentalist discourse, “martyrdom” discourse) with a masculine discourse and reaches/gains a certain momentum in late sixties. In Turkish political culture, since the 19th century, there is what I call the “myth of youth (Lüküslü, 2009)” in which young people play an active role in the political space as the “vanguards” of the State. In the sixties, youth acts in line with this myth of youth and is mobilized in order to “save the honor of the nation”. Saving the nation passes through an anti-imperialist discourse during this Cold War era and takes its form in particular in the demonstrations against the 6th fleet of the US navy and joins with a developmentalist discourse in which imperialism is accused of the underdevelopment of the society. With the death of Vedat Demircioğlu, after the demonstrations against the fleet with an operation of the police to the Istanbul Technical University dormitory, Vedat Demircioğlu becomes the first “martyr” of the 68 generation in Turkey and begins a discourse of “martyrdom”. All these discourses melds with a masculine one and the nation’s honor becomes “men’s honor”. I argue that the concept of “hegemonic masculinity” of Connell can be used to understand the melding of the theme of the honor of the nation with a masculine discourse as well as comprehending the dominant discussions in the Turkish political culture of the period.