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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 studies the violent politics of stigmatisation and erasure of nationalist urban infrastructure. In general, urban infrastructure is a mechanism of state power. But, through the case of the imposing presence of Turkish nationalist infrastructure in the Kurdish city Diyarbakir, it demonstrates that when tied to an antagonistic nationalist political project, this infrastructure is often purposefully built to violently cleanse urban spaces of the national "other". Be it a statue, a mural or a picture of a nationalist leader – this infrastructure is incapable of inflicting physical pain. Nonetheless, its violence is symbolic and meant to have a real effect on Diyarbakir's Kurds' ability and willingness to identify as Kurds. That said, violence does not entirely inform the spatial experience of those targeted by this nationalist infrastructure. The article demonstrates that Kurdish residents also found ways of remaining unaffected, even treating the infrastructure laden with Turkish nationalist iconography as a reminder of their own Kurdish identity. This article thus expands our understanding of what nationalist infrastructure does. It may be designed to be violent. However, it also reveals itself to be a site of contestation – equally inspiring the persistence of the counter-narrative of the national "other". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural imperialism thesis that emerged in late 20th century focused on inequalities in the West driven global flow of culture and communication, and how that adversely affected the cultural conditions of nations in the so called Third World. However, the core–periphery dynamic at the root of cultural imperialism has not merely been confined to the transnational level, from the West to the Rest. It has existed at the national level as well. Conducting a historical examination of state policy vis-à-vis Kurdish culture in Turkey, and drawing on the theories of cultural imperialism, internal colonialism and nationalism, I develop the concept of internal cultural imperialism to capture the state of severe center peripheral cultural imbalance that has been a product of Turkish nationalist ideology and its policies of cultural homogenization. In hegemonic condition, the state's ultimate goal has been to subjugate and/or possibly eradicate the cultures of non-core groups within its territory. [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]

This article analyses two related phenomena, the transformation of Turkish nationalism and the articulation of a modern Turkish national identity through global processes. To understand these, the paper critically examines the cultural politics of an advertising campaign for Benetton Condoms that came out in 2000. Relying on interviews conducted with the employees of an advertising agency and basing my conclusion on a textual analysis of the outcomes of this campaign, it is argued that during this critical period of Turkey’s rapid expansion to become a player in the global marketplace, such a campaign articulated global consumerism and Turkish nationalism. The result was the construction of a new Turkish identity; “global Turkishness”. In the cultural imagination of advertisers, concepts such as race, sexuality and disease become constituent elements of this global national identity. These concepts also articulate a popular consumerist Turkishness through the Benetton advertising campaign. [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]

This article argues that in the interwar period, the Turkish government subjected Ottoman cities to various forms of spatial planning aimed at modernizing but also ethnically homogenizing them. It draws on untapped sources to portray how the regime saw this “modernization” as a panacea that would bring the country up to par with European “civilization.” In the ideological universe of the regime, a perfect society could be forged by design and coercion. As a result, the multiethnic cities of Turkey became the object of high-modernist utopias of spatial planning and urban redesign. These policies were also aimed at erasing Ottoman cities’ multiethnic pasts and crafting a “healthy” Turkish population. [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]

Recent studies have shown that the most important factor explaining opinions on European Union issues is attitudes towards immigrants. Two arguments are given to explain this effect. We contend that these arguments are both built on the idea that people with anti-immigrant attitudes frame other Europeans as an out-group. We then test the validity of these arguments by measuring how respondents in a voter survey frame the issue of Turkish membership. We find that framing the issue in terms of out-groups indeed mediates the effect of anti-immigrant attitudes on support for Turkish membership. This finding offers new insights into why levels of public support vary over different EU issues, because opposition is likely to increase when an issue is more easily framed in terms of out-groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]