CSHS 507 Selected Topics on Turkish State and Society
Spring 2009
Instructor: Deniz Yükseker
Class: SOS Z22
Time: 14:15-17:00
Course web page: available on Courseware (through KUAIS)
Office: SOS254, phone: x 1309
Office hours: Wednesday 11:00-12:30, Thursday 14:30-16:00, and by appointment
Course Description: This course introduces a number of themes in the study of Turkish
society from sociological, anthropological and political economy perspectives. Rather than
canvassing an exhaustive list of topics, our goal in this course will be to examine different
approaches on state-society relations, economic life, gender, and the Kurdish question. While
doing this, we will sometimes contextualize Turkish experiences within broader conceptual
and regional frameworks.
Course Requirements: Regular attendance, active participation, keeping up with the readings
and timely fulfillment of all assignments are essential for your success in this course.
Evaluation will be based on five reading responses and presentations (10 percent each) and a
final paper (50 percent).
Important Note: Koç University and Sociology Department guidelines on academic integrity
apply. (See course web page for details.)
COURSE SCHEDULE
Week 1: 10 February
INTRODUCTION
Week 2: 17 February
THE INSIDE AND THE OUTSIDE: CONSTRUCTIONS OF MEMBERSHIP
Tanıl Bora, “İnşa Döneminde Türk Milli Kimliği,” Toplum ve Bilim, no. 71, 1996 (on
courseware)
Mesut Yeğen, “Citizenship and Ethnicity in Turkey,” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 40, no. 5,
2004: 682-708 (on courseware).
Nükhet Sirman, “The Making of Familial Citizenship in Turkey” in Citizenship in a
Global World – European Questions and Turkish Experiences, eds. Fuat Keyman and Ahmet
İçduygu, London: Routledge, 2005: 147-172.
Ayşe Buğra, “Poverty and Citizenship: An Overview of the Social-Policy Environment in
Republican Turkey,” IJMES, vol. 39, 2007: 33-57 (on courseware)
Optional: Cenk Saraçoğlu “‘Exclusive Recognition’: The New Dimensions of the Question of
Ethnicity and Nationalism in Turkey” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2008, 1-19 (on courseware)
Week 3: 24 February
FORGETTING AND REMEMBERING
Meltem Ahıska, “Occidentalism and Registers of Truth: The Politics of Archives in
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Turkey,” NPT, no. 34, 2006: 9-30 (on courseware)
Biray Kolluoğlu Kırlı, “Forgetting the Smyrna Fire”, HWJ, no. 60, 2005: 25-44 (on
courseware).
Zerrin Özlem Biner, “Retrieving the Dignity of a Cosmopolitan City: Contested
Perspectives on Rights, Culture and Ethnicity in Mardin” NPT, no. 37, 2007, 31-58. (on
courseware)
Cihan Tuğal, “Memories of Violence, Memoirs of Nation. The 1915 Massacres and the
Construction of Identity” in The Politics of Public Memory in Turkey, 2007, ed. Esra
Özyürek, Syracuse University Press, 138-161.
Week 4: 3 March
STATE ETHNOGRAPHIES
Yael Navaro-Yashin: chapters 4 and 5 in Faces of the State. Secularism and Public Life in
Turkey, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002: 1-16 and 117-187.
Yael Navaro-Yashin (2006) “Affect in the Civil Service: a Study of a
Modern State-System” Postcolonial Studies, vol.9, no.3, 281-294 (on Courseware).
Aradhana Sharma and Akhil Gupta, “Introduction: Rethinking Theories of the State in an Age
of Globalization” in A. Sharma and Akhil Gupta, eds. The Anthropology of the State. A
Reader, 2006, London: Blackwell.
Akhil Gupta. “Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and
the Imagined State” American Ethnologist, vol. 22, no. 2, May 2005: 375-402 (on
courseware).
Week 5: 10 March
STATECRAFT AND VIOLENCE
Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, and Modernity, Berkeley:
University of California Press, Introduction, chapter 1
Fernando Coronil and Julie Skurski, “Introduction: States of Violence and the Violence of
States” in States of Violence, eds. Fernando Coronil and Julie Skurski, Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 2006: 1-31.
Lars Buur, “The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission: A Technique of
Nation-State formation” in States of Imagination, eds. Thomas Blom Hansen and Finn
Stepputat, 2001, Duke University Press, 149-181.
*Neve Gordon, Israel’s Occupation, 2008, Berkeley, University of California Press, chapters
tba (*depending on the availability of book)
Week 6: 17 March
STUDYING THE KURDISH ISSUE
Mesut Yeğen, “The Kurdish Question in Turkish State Discourse,” Journal of Contemporary
History, Vol.34, No.4, October 1999: 555-568 (on courseware)
Mesut Yeğen, “Turkish Nationalism and the Kurdish Question” Ethnic and Racial Studies,
vol. 30, no.1, 119-151 (on courseware)
Bilgin Ayata and Deniz Yükseker, “A Belated Awakening: National and International
Responses to the Internal Displacement of Kurds in Turkey,” NPT, no. 35, 2005: 5-42 (on
courseware)
Handan Çağlayan. 2008. “Voices from the periphery of the periphery: Kurdish women's political
participation in Turkey” conference paper (on courseware)
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Handan Çağlayan. 2009. “Ekonomi-Politik Perspektiften Türkiye’de Kürt Muhalefetinin
Dönüşümü” in Tülin Öngen, M. Kemal Coşkun (eds.) Kapitalizmin Yeniden Yapılanması:
Kuramsal Yöntemsel ve Pratik Boyut, Ankara: Dipnot Yayınevi
(in press)
Week 7: 24 March
RURAL TRANSFORMATION, MIGRATION AND URBANIZATION
Bahattin Akşit, “Studies in Rural Transformation in Turkey 1950-1990” in Culture and
Economy. Changes in Turkish Villages, 1993, (ed.) Paul Stirling, Eothen Press, 187-200.
Çağlar Keyder, “The Genesis of Petty Commodity Production in Agriculture. The Case of
Turkey” in Culture and Economy. Changes in Turkish Villages. 1993, (ed.) Paul Stirling,
Eothen Press, 171-186.
Nükhet Sirman, “Sosyal Bilimlerde Gelişmecilik ve Köy Çalışmaları” Toplum ve Bilim, no.
88, 251-254.
Ayşe Öncü, “The Politics of the Urban Land Market in Turkey. 1950-1980” IJURR, 1988,
vol. 12, no.1, 38-64.
Week 8: 31 March
SOCIAL CHANGE UNDER NEOLIBERALISM
Ümit Cizre and Erinç Yeldan. (2005). “The Turkish Encounter with Neo-Liberalism:
Economics and Politics in the 2000/2001 Crises.” Review of International Political Economy,
vol. 12, no. 3: 387-408 (on courseware).
Ali Murat Özdemir and Gamze Yücesan-Özdemir, “Labor Law Reform in Turkey in the
2000s. The Devil is not just in the Details but also in the Legal Texts,” Economic and
Industrial Democracy, 2006, no. 27: 311-331 (on courseware).
Ayfer Bartu Candan and Biray Kolluoğlu (2008) “Emerging Spaces of Neoliberalism: A
Gated Town and a Public Housing Project in İstanbul” New Perspectives on Turkey, no. 39, 546 (on courseware).
Zülküf Aydın, “The New Right, Structural Adjustment and Turkish Agriculture. Rural
Responses and Survival Strategies” European Journal of Development Research, 2002, vol.
14, no. 2, 183-208 (on courseware)
Spring Break (April 6-10)
Week 9: 14 April
NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION AND GOVERNANCE
David Harvey, “The Neoliberal State” and “Neoliberalism on Trial” in A Brief History of
Neoliberalism, 2005, Oxford University Press, 64-86 and 152-182.
Elizabeth C. Dunn, “Standards and Person-Making in East Central Europe,” in Global
Assemblages. Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems, 2005, Blackwell,
173-193.
James Ferguson, “Globalizing Africa? Observations from an Inconvenient Continent” and
“Transnational Topographies of Power: Beyond “the State” and “Civil Society” in the Study
of African Politics” in Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order, 2006, Duke
University Press, 25-49 and 89-112.
Week 10: 21 April
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ETHNOGRAPHIES OF NEOLIBERALISM
Julia Elyachar, Markets of Dispossession. NGOs, Economic Development, and the State in
Cairo, 2005, Durham: Duke University Press, chapters 1 and 6
Michael Goldman, Imperial Nature. The World Bank and Social Justice in an Age of
Globalization, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005: chapters 1 and 6 (available as an ebook)
Week 11: 28 April
GENDER AND WORK IN TURKEY
Ferhunde Özbay, “Evlerde Elkızları: Cariyeler, Evlatlıklar, Gelinler,” Feminist
Tarihyazımında Sınıf ve Cinsiyet, eds. Leonore Davidoff and Ayşe Durakbaşa, 2002, İstanbul:
İletişim (on courseware)
Tahire Erman, Sibel Kalaycıoğlu and Helga Rittersberger-Tılıç, “Money-Earning Activities
and Empowerment Experiences of Rural Migrant Women in the City. The Case of Turkey”
women’s Studies International Forum, 2002, vol. 25, no.4, 395-410 (on courseware)
Ayşe Akalın, “Hired as a Caregiver, Demanded as a Housewife: Becoming a Migrant
Domestic Worker in Turkey” European Journal of Women’s Studies, 2007, vol. 13, no.3, 209225 (on courseware).
Aksu Bora, Kadınların Sınıfı, 2008 (2nd ed.), Istanbul, İletişim Yayınları, chapters tba
Week 12: 5 May
GENDER AND VIOLENCE
Ayşe Gül Altınay, The Myth of the Military Nation, chapters 1 and 2, 13-58.
Dicle Koğacıoğlu, “Gelenek Söylemleri ve İktidarın Doğallaşması: Namus Cinayetleri
Örneği,” Kültür ve Siyasette Feminist Yaklaşımlar, No.3, June 2007 (on Courseware)
Nükhet Sirman, “Kinship, Politics, and Love: Honour in Post-Colonial Contexts–The Case of
Turkey” in Violence in the Name of Honour. Theoretical and Political Challenges. Eds.
Shahrzad Mojab and Nahla Abdo, 2004, Bilgi University Press, 39-56
Week 13: 12 May
STUDYING THE ISLAMIST MOVEMENT
Cihan Tuğal: “The Greening of Istanbul,” NLR, no. 51, May-June 2008, pp. 65-80 (on
Courseware)
*Cihan Tuğal, Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism, 2009,
Stanford University Press (*depending on the availability of the book)
Brian Silverstein, “Islamist Critique in Modern Turkey: Hermeneutics, Tradition, Genealogy”
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2005, 134-160 (on courseware)
No class on 19 May
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