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This article explains how the Turkish nation's composition has changed under Justice and Development Party rule. Turkish nationalism and Turkish national identity have dramatically changed since 2010, when the Kurdish Opening process was started by former prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Syrian refugee crisis and the influx of Syrian refugees into Turkey created another change in Turkish national identity. Increasing religiosity in Turkey and the use of Islam by the Justice and Development Party created a flexible nation, where all Sunni Muslims can be considered members even though they are not ethnically Turkish. The author uses primary sources, such as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's speeches since 2010, to show how his discourse became more embracing of non-Turkish Muslim groups and created a dynastic understanding of nationalism based on religion rather than the idea of an ethnically homogenous, secular Turkish nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the identity dynamics of the Arabic-speaking Greek Orthodox community of the Hatay province of Turkey. Citizens of Turkey, members of the Greek Orthodox church and Arabic speakers, members of this small but historic community stood at the crossroads of three nationalisms: Greek, Syrian and Turkish. Following the urbanization waves that swept through the Turkish countryside since the 1950s, thousands of Hatay Greek Orthodox moved to Istanbul and were given the chance to integrate with the Greek minority there. The case of the Hatay Greek Orthodox community points to the resilience of millet -based identities, more than a century after the demise of the Ottoman Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role do nationally celebrated holidays play for groups that are not considered—or do not consider themselves—to be part of the majority nation of a state? What function do holidays specific to minority group cultures serve under regimes that discriminate against those groups? This article explores holidays as a forum for contestation for the national identity proposals promulgated by the state in repressive regimes. We argue that national holidays are meaningful sites of identity contestation for four reasons: the role of holidays in heightening identity salience, the malleability of identity narratives, the relative lack of institutional barriers to acts of celebration, and the significance of refusing to participate in celebrations. We collected the data through interviews and participant observation of the Hui in China and the Kurds in Turkey. We employ ethnographic observation and intertextual analysis to compare these identity narratives. We find that the Hui legitimize their group's existence by co-opting the traditional Spring Festival, or by outwardly insisting they are not celebrating while still engaging in festivities. In contrast, Turkey's Kurds resist the government's co-optation of the spring celebration of Newroz as a Turkish national holiday. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the ways in which the spread and the overwhelming popularity of Turkish television series in Southeastern Europe influence the change in perception of Turks and Turkey, as well as how the serials are transforming the image of the Balkans and the Ottoman legacy in Turkey. Television serials significantly contributed to the shifting popular image of the "other," and initiated interactions unimaginable even a decade ago. These exchanges are both following and encouraging the breakdown of geohistorical boundaries that were set by the nationalist narratives in these regions at the turn of the 20th century, toward a more nuanced understanding of a shared past and a postnational future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey is fully engaged in its “hydraulic mission,” very extensively and rapidly “developing” water resources throughout its territory. The extensive hydraulic development attempts conducted by the Turkish government create local, national, inter-state, and transnational contestations among the different interest groups. A great deal of scholarly literature has analyzed the rationale behind Turkey’s massive-scale hydraulic development. While some studies link Turkey’s hydraulic mission to its energy and food security, others highlight the importance of domestic conflicts, as in the case of the Kurdish issue in the southeast. However, few works examine the relationship between hydraulic development and state- and nation-making processes in the early period of the republic. This paper seeks to analyze the role of hydraulic development in state- and nation-making in the context of Turkey by looking at the institutional documents published by official authorities and speeches made by key politicians. Drawing mainly upon the theory of water nationalism and its related conceptual frameworks, this study argues that hydraulic development has formed one of the important components of the modernization process in Turkey, thereby playing a significant role in its state- and nation-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkish nationalism has long presented a study in contrasts. The nationalist movement that created the Republic of Turkey sought to define the nation in explicitly civic and inclusive terms, promoting a variety of integrationist reforms. Those same nationalist politicians, however, endorsed other policies that were far more exclusionary, expelling many religious and ethnic minorities from the new nation and imposing harsh restrictions on those who remained. The seemingly contradictory nature of Turkish nationalist policies has been mirrored by much of the scholarship on Turkish nationalism, which has often viewed Turkish nationality through the lens of the “civic/ethnic divide,” with various scholars arguing that the Turkish nation is exclusively civic or ethnic. This article seeks to transcend this dichotomous way of looking at Turkish nationalism. I argue that the policies previously seen as being exclusively civic or ethnic are in fact both examples of boundary-making processes, designed to forge a cohesive nationalist community. Seen through a boundary-making perspective, the seemingly contradictory nature of Turkish nationalist policies in its early years is not paradoxical at all, but represents a multidimensional effort to construct a cohesive national community that could replace the defunct Ottoman state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article offers a critical reading, from the perspective of gender studies, of films produced in the politically charged environment of the 1990s and 2000s by directors Tomris Giritlioğlu and Yeşim Ustaoğlu. Giritlioğlu’s Ms. Salkım’s Diamonds (Salkım Hanımın Taneleri, 1999) and Autumn Pain (Güz Sancısı, 2008) were based on Yılmaz Karakoyunlu’s novels Salkım Hanım’ın Taneleri (1990) and Güz Sancısı (1992), while Ustaoğlu’s Waiting for the Clouds (Bulutları Beklerken, 2004) was inspired by Yorgo Andreadis’ biography, Tamama (1993). The films claim artistic license in presenting individual stories, yet they embellish their representation through documentary footage about silenced historical traumas, depicting female subjects as the store of traumatic national memories, such as the exodus of Pontic Greeks in 1916, the anti-minority Wealth Tax of 1942, and the anti-Greek pogroms of 1955. Underscoring Julia Kristeva’s notion of the “feminine” as a crucial aspect of these films, this article traces two strategies used by the directors: (1) recording personal stories in order to complicate nationalist narratives and their appeal to essentialized identities, and (2) gendering trauma as female suffering inflicted by patriarchal authority. The article concludes that, regardless of their public positions to the contrary, the directors engage in feminist politics by questioning the relationship between women and the nation, by broaching issues of social justice, and by highlighting the hybridity of identities and plurality of cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

According to theories of nonviolent resistance, violence is counterproductive and undermines the ability of a movement to achieve mass support. At the same time, studies of ethnic insurgencies suggest that violence is the only available method of mobilization in political systems characterized by entrenched ethnic hierarchies. Engaging with these arguments, this article addresses a historical puzzle: What factors explain the timing and ability of the PKK's (Partiye Karkerên Kurdistan) rise as the hegemonic Kurdish nationalist organization in Turkey between the late 1970s and 1990? The article argues that studies that identify Kurdish nationalism as a reaction to repressive policies of the Turkish state without paying attention to prevailing social conditions and oppositional strategies fail to provide a satisfactory response. It argues that the rise of the PKK was primarily a function of its ability to gain support among the peasantry in deeply unequal rural areas through its strategic employment of violence. It also identifies four causal mechanisms of PKK recruitment based on rich archival and field research: credibility, revenge, social mobility, and gender emancipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outcome of Turkey's June 2011 elections temporarily quelled – though by no means entirely put to rest – growing concern over the creeping autocratic tendencies of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). To ensure that democracy remains durable, the AKP must now clearly demonstrate that it is willing to shun heavy-handed tactics and instead engage the opposition in a genuine dialog regarding important matters of constitutional change, especially those related to individual rights and identity issues. A slide toward autocracy has been an all-too-common pitfall in Turkish politics over the years. Should it so choose, the AKP is well poised to break the cycle at this critical juncture in Turkish politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Bulgarian majority and Turkish minority relations have remained peaceful in the post Communist era despite a significant potential for civil strife. These antagonisms were a product of Bulgaria's historical political development.The most recent episode of forced assimilation policies under the Communist regime was a critical grievance contributing to the democratic transition in 1989. Unlike in neighboring Yugoslavia, communal ethnic conflict did not escalate to violence with political liberalization and the emergence of democratic political competition. A critical factor in the political formula for maintaining interethnic peace in Bulgaria has been Turkey's comparatively constrained behavior as a 'motherland state' with regard to the Turkish Diaspora in Bulgaria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the development of national identity and the formation of political organizations in the Turkish minority in the early years of the formation of the Bulgarian state from 1878 to the 1940s. It studies transnational aspects of nationalism, which is usually considered territorially bounded, by studying the impact of connections between the Turkish minority and the Ottoman Empire and later with Turkey. In addition to studying inter-state relations and their reflection in the legal and political sphere, this paper studies the flow of ideas across borders, transnational networks among political activists, and the resulting cleavage formation. Findings show that transnational connections and actors played dual roles. The circulation of political activists, contributed to the formation of national organizations which played a crucial role in (re)formulating national identity. Transnational connections increased political activity in the name of the Turkish minority. Through these organizations the community was able to make collective demands from the Bulgarian state. However, transnational connections carried debates and divisions in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey to the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. By dividing the community, they decreased the capacity for collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The religious arid nationalist nature of the Sheikh Said Rebellion in 1925 has been debated by the scholars for decades, For the Kurdish nationalists the rebellion symbolized the Kurdish struggle for an independent state. For the Turkish state, it was another deception by Great Britain to stir up the region for its colonialist interests. Newly available sources in the US diplomatic archives raise the question of the Turkish government's fomentation and/or manipulation of the Sheikh Said Rebellion. In addition, some of the Turkish oppositional leaders (such as Kazim Karabekir) of the time suggested that this rebellion was allowed to happen to suppress the political opposition in Turkey. This study examines the validity of these claims and how this rebellion was manipulated to silence political opposition in Turkey. More specifically, this study will seek answers to the following questions: Was the Sheikh Said Rebellion fomented by the Turkish government to eliminate the political opposition? How was this rebellion manipulated to accomplish this aim? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]