Search

This article explores ordinary individuals' understandings of nationhood. In so doing, it focuses on the case of Armenian migrants from Turkey to Canada and their conceptualizations of the host country. The paper captures multiple strands of nationhood and argues that these are pertinent to different boundary-making processes. The outer boundary of nationhood is defined along inclusive and civic lines where difference is recognized and appreciated. Living with difference, on the other hand, brings to the fore the tension between recognizing it on the one hand and accommodating it on the other. The case study further reveals how the exercise of state power and individuals' encounters with the state shape their understandings of nationhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to explore the forced dislocation of immigrant Gyspy townspeople from a Turkish town, Bayramiç, Çanakkale in 1970. It focuses on the workings of social categories of Turkishness and Gypsyness through this exclusionary violent case, how they were re-employed and reproduced exclusively in conjunction with Turkish nationalism. It was the time of socio-economic transformation and rise in populist–nationalist discourses in Turkey. In the town, the reflections of this historical context demonstrated the transformation in power allocation and competing personal interests in highway transportation and forestry. Eventually, the attacks started as “Drivers’ Fight” but turned into “Gypsy hunt” with the effects of socio-economic competition and interests, the employment of historical stigma of Gypsyness and terrorization of the perpetrators in the town. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some sending states encourage continued emigrant involvement whereas others do not? And to what extent does sending-state transnationalism lead to a redefinition of borders? Although research on sending-state transnationalism is flourishing, so far it only covers the positive cases and remains silent on states inactive in this respect. This article addresses this lacuna by comparing transnational costs, benefits and strategies of two radically different sending states, Surinam and Turkey, including one that never reached out to its emigrants. The two sending states have very different ideologies of nationhood: one based on ‘unity in diversity’ on one territory (Surinam), the other based on ethnic nationalism (Turkey). Homeland ideologies of nationhood, this article argues, play a significant role in including or excluding emigrants and their descendants. In this way sending states reinforce rather than deterritorialize their national borders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this article is to question, on the basis of the findings of a public opinion survey conducted by the authors in February 2006, the commonsense belief in the recent rise of nationalism in Turkey. Building on a conceptual and theoretical framework that rejects the view of nationalism as a conjunctural force that waxes and wanes in particular historical moments, the article will explore how nationalism is understood by the ‘people on the street’ in order to make sense of what we would describe as the ‘continual’ appeal of nationalism in Turkey. In this context, we will argue that the ‘tidal wave approach’ to nationalism, which treats it as a force hitting on particular occasions, or as a temporary aberration, does scant justice to the pervasiveness of nationalism in contemporary societies, western or non-western, including Turkey. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s concept of ‘family man’, we will explore the role of family in the production and reproduction of nationalism in Turkey with a view to showing the extent to which nationalism is embedded in the fabric of society, delimiting the boundaries of responsibility and providing a template that lays down the standards of morality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]