Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T15:53:20.005Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hyphenated Turkishness: The plurality of lived nationhood in Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Serhun Al  and
Daniel Karell
Serhun Al*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Izmir University of Economics, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Daniel Karell
Affiliation:
Division of Social Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
*
∗ Corresponding author. Email: serhun.al@utah.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Is Turkish nationality one singular identity that does not permit ethnic modifiers? Or can it be understood as pluralistic, with identities nested — “hyphenated” — with Turkishness? Then, are Turkish and Kurdish identities necessarily mutually exclusive? Such questions over the boundaries of Turkishness have long been framed in the civic versus ethnic dichotomy — an approach that does not ask whether Turkish nationhood is monolithic or pluralistic. In response, this article aims to advance the public and scholarly debates over nationhood in Turkey by turning to the question of ways in which Turkishness can be hyphenated with other identity categories in Turkey, most particularly Kurdishness. First, we reframe the debate over identity by using the combinatorial approach to ethnicity to outline how Turkishness and Kurdishness can be overlapping and nested, or a hyphenated identity. Second, we draw on public opinion data to show that such a hyphenated identity is both theoretically possible and potentially salient in Turkey today. Together, these steps deconstruct the primordialist understandings of Turkishness and Kurdishness, on the one hand, and the taken-for-granted civic claims of Turkishness, on the other.

Keywords

Turkeynational identitycombinatorial approach to ethnicityKurdishnessethnic versus civic debate
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 144 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmad, Feroz. 2014. The Young Turks and the Ottoman Nationalities. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Akçura, Yusuf. [1904] 1976. Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset. Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi.Google Scholar
Akturk, Sener. 2009. “Persistence of the Islamic Millet as an Ottoman Legacy: Mono-Religious and Anti-Ethnic Definition of Turkish Nationhood.” Middle Eastern Studies 45 (6): 893–909.Google Scholar
Akturk, Sener. 2012a. “Turk ust kimligi.” Sabah. Accessed September 22. http://www.sabah.com.tr/yazarlar/perspektif/sener%20akturk/2012/09/22/turk-ust-kimligi.Google Scholar
Akturk, Sener. 2012b. Regimes of Ethnicity and Nationhood in Germany, Russia, and Turkey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Al, Serhun. 2015a. “Elite Discourses, Nationalism and Moderation: A Dialectical Analysis of Turkish and Kurdish Nationalisms.” Ethnopolitics 14 (1): 94–112.Google Scholar
Al, Serhun. 2015b. “An Anatomy of Nationhood and the Question of Assimilation: Debates on Turkishness Revisited.” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 15 (1): 83–101.Google Scholar
Aslan, Senem. 2007. “'Citizen, Speak Turkish!': A Nation in the Making.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 13 (2): 245–272.Google Scholar
Bail, Christopher A. 2008. “The Configuration of Symbolic Boundaries against Immigrants in Europe.” American Sociological Review 73 (1): 37–59.Google Scholar
Bila, Fikret. 2005. “Bu Millet ne Millet?” Milliyet, November 27. http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2005/11/27/yazar/bila.html.Google Scholar
Bloemraad, Irene. 2006. Becoming a Citizen: Incorporating Immigrants and Refugees in the United States and Canada. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bloemraad, Irene, Korteweg, Anna, and Yurdakul, Gokce. 2008. “Citizenship and Immigration: Multiculturalism, Assimilation, and Challenges to the Nation-State.” American Review of Sociology 34: 153–179.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2004. Ethnicity Without Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2013a. “Language, Religion, and the Politics of Difference.” Nations and Nationalism 19 (1): 1–20.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2013b. “Categories of Analysis and Categories of Practice: A Note on the Study of Muslims in European Countries of Immigration.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 36 (1): 1–8.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers, Feischmidt, Marget, Jon, Fox, and Grancea, Liana. 2006. Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bulac, Ali. 2005. “Ust kimlik-alt kimlik.” Zaman. December 12. http://www.zaman.com.tr/ali-bulac/ust-kimlik-alt-kimlik_239080.html.Google Scholar
Cagaptay, Soner. 2003. “Citizenship and Nationalism in Interwar Turkey.” Nations and Nationalism 9 (4): 601–619.Google Scholar
Cagaptay, Soner. 2004. “Race, Assimilation and Kemalism: Turkish Nationalism and the Minorities in the 1930s.” Middle Eastern Studies 40 (3): 86–101.Google Scholar
Chandra, Kanchan. 2006. “What is Ethnicity and does it Matter?” Annual Review of Political Science 9: 397–424.Google Scholar
Chandra, Kanchan. 2012. “Introduction.” In Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics, edited by Chandra, Kanchan, 1–50. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chandra, Kanchan, and Boulet, Cilanne. 2012. “A Combinatorial Language for Thinking about Ethnic Change.” In Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics, edited by Chandra, Kanchan, 179–228. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Elphinston, William G. 1946. “The Kurdish Question.” International Affairs 22 (1): 91–103.Google Scholar
Ergin, Murat. 2008. “Is the Turk a White Man? Towards a Theoretical Framework for Race in the Making of Turkishness.” Middle Eastern Studies 44 (6): 827–850.Google Scholar
Ergul, Feride Asli. 2012. “The Ottoman Identity: Turkish, Muslim or Rum?” Middle Eastern Studies 48 (4): 629–645.Google Scholar
Ferree, Karen. 2012. “How Fluid is Fluid? The Mutability of Ethnic Identities and Electoral Volatility in Africa.” In Constructivist Theories of Ethnic Politics, edited by Chandra, Kanchan, 312–340. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gökalp, Ziya. [1923] 1976. Türkçülüğün Esasları. Istanbul: Milli Egitim Basimevi.Google Scholar
Grigoriadis, Ioannis N. 2007. “Turk or Turkiyeli? The Reform of Turkey's Minority Legislation and the Rediscovery of Ottomanism.” Middle Eastern Studies 43 (3): 423–438.Google Scholar
Gunes, Cengiz. 2012. The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey: From Protest to Resistance. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hale, Henry E. 2008. The Foundations of Ethnic Politics: Separatism of States and Nations in Eurasia and the World. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hanioglu, Sukru. 2013. “Turk'Olabilirdi; Ama ‘Turk’ Olmadi, Simdi ‘Turk’ Olur Mu?” Sabah, February 3. http://www.sabah.com.tr/Yazarlar/hanioglu/2013/02/03/turk-olabilirdi-ama-turk-olmadi-simdi-turk-olur-mu.Google Scholar
Hechter, Michael. 1999. Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development. 2nd ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Jiménez, Tomás R. 2010. “Affiliative Ethnic Identity: A More Elastic Link Between Ethnic Ancestry and Culture.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 33 (10): 1756–1775.Google Scholar
Joppke, Christian. 2008. “Immigration and the Identity of Citizenship: The Paradox of Universalism.” Citizenship Studies 12 (6): 533–546.Google Scholar
Karpat, Kemal. 2001. The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kuru, Ahmet. 2014. “Yeni(den) ‘Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset': Etnik Türkçülük, İslamcılık ve Türkiyelilik” Zaman, June 20. http://www.zaman.com.tr/yorum_yeniden-uc-tarz-i-siyaset-etnik-turkculuk-islamcilik-ve-turkiyelilik_2225554.html.Google Scholar
Laitin, David. 1998. Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad. Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Lamont, Michele, Morning, Ann, and Mooney, Margarita. 2002. “North African Immigrants Respond to French Racism: Demonstrating Equivalence through Universalism.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 25 (3): 390–414.Google Scholar
Morin, Aysel, and Ronald, Lee. 2010. “Constitutive Discourse of Turkish Nationalism: Atatürk's Nutuk and the Rhetorical Construction of the “Turkish People”.” Communications Studies 61 (5): 485–506.Google Scholar
Olson, Robert. 1989. The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880-1925. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Oran, Baskin. 2005. “Turk degil Turkiyeli.” Sabah, August 22. http://arsiv.sabah.com.tr/2005/08/22/siy109.html.Google Scholar
Ozturk, Saygi. 2007. Ismet Pasa'nin Kurt Raporu. Istanbul: Dogan Kitap.Google Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, and Rumbaut, Rubén G. 2006. Immigrant America: A Portrait. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Sahin, Haluk. 2004. “Turkiyeli, Turk, Alt-Kimlik, Ust-Kimlik.” Radikal, October 22. http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=131965.Google Scholar
Toft, Monica D. 2003. The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Toprak, Zafer. 2012. Darwin'den Dersim'e Cumhuriyet ve Antropoloji. Istanbul: Dogan.Google Scholar
Ungor, Ugur Umit. 2011. The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Waters, Mary. 1999. Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas. 2002. Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflicts: Shadows of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas. 2008a. “Elementary Strategies of Ethnic Boundary Making.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 31 (6): 1025–1055.Google Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas. 2008b. “The Making and Unmaking of Ethnic Boundaries: A Multilevel Process Theory.” American Journal of Sociology 113 (5): 970–1022.Google Scholar
Yavuz, Hakan. 2001. “Five Stages of the Construction of Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 7 (3): 1–24.Google Scholar
Yavuz, Hakan. 2003. Islamic Political Identity in Turkey. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Yavuz, Hakan. 2013. “Warfare and Nationalism: The Balkan Wars as a Catalyst for Homogenization.” In War and Nationalism: The Balkan Wars, 1912-1913, and Their Sociopolitical Implications, edited by Yavuz, Hakan and Blumi, Isa, 31–84. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Yegen, Mesut. 2004. “Citizenship and Ethnicity in Turkey.” Middle Eastern Studies 40 (6): 51–66.Google Scholar
Yilmaz, Hale. 2013. Becoming Turkish: Nationalist Reforms and Cultural Negotiations in Early Republican Turkey (1923-1945). Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Zurcher, Erik Jan. 2010. The Young Turk Legacy and Nation Building: From the Ottoman Empire to Ataturk's Turkey. New York: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar