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Occidentalism and Registers of Truth: The Politics of Archives in Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

Meltem Ahıska
Meltem Ahıska*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Boğaziçi University
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Extract

What is an archive, and how does it relate to our sense of history and, moreover, to our sense of the present? This question stands at the interstices of bureaucracy, historiography, and memory. Needless to say, it is also a highly political question. This article deals with the politics of archives, specifically as it manifests itself in Turkey. My aim in looking at the problem of archives is to further raise questions about the relation of history, memory, and truth. The politics of archives is a significant topic today, not only in Turkey, but also, for example, in many post-communist countries, regarding which past records of the old totalitarian regimes should be made public in the age of so-called democracy. In this respect, archives are not only the concerns of historians who are interested in recovering the past, but also of political rulers who aim to frame the past for present purposes.

Type
Articles
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 34: Special Issue on Social Memory , Spring 2006 , pp. 9 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2006

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