"Is the Turk a White Man?": Race and Modernity in the Making of Turkish Identity

by Murat Ergin

Overview

In 1909, US courts set out to decide “whether a Turkish citizen shall be naturalized as a white person.” Turkish elites had already undertaken to portray the Turks as the historic source of Western civilization, white racial stock, and human language. Examining this interaction between global racial discourses and local responses, Ergin recentres Turkish modernization on imaginings of race.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608468386
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	03/27/2018
Series:	Studies in Critical Social Sciences
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Murat Ergin, Ph.D. (2005), University of Minnesota, is Associate Professor of Sociology at Koç University. His research interests include nationalism, race, ethnicity, cultural boundaries, and death.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: WHY THIS BOOK SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN
Race and the Turkish Case
Why Care About the Turkish Case?
The West = Theory; The Rest = “Mere” Case
Cases and National Boundaries

CHAPTER 2: THE REPUBLICAN CONVERSION NARRATIVE
Rewriting History

CHAPTER 3: ENCOUNTERS WITH THE “WEST”
Becoming White
The Ghosts of the Past: Ottoman Modernization and Encounters with the West
The Ottoman Interest in Race
Ziya Gökalp: The Official Ideologue of the Republic?
The Formation of the “Terrible Turk”: Western Perceptions
The Problem of Periodization

CHAPTER 4: RACE IN EARLY REPUBLICAN TURKEY
Racial Vocabularies
Mermaids, Fish, Humans: The Taxonomic Discourse
Biometric Mobilization to Protect and Improve the Race
Anthropometric Mobilization to “Discover” the Turkish Race

CHAPTER 5: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS AND RACIAL DISCOURSES
Intellectual Exchange and Historical Contingency
The UniversityReform and Émigré Scholars
Conflicting Loyalties: Expertise in the Service of Local and Universal Agendas
Afet Inan and Eugène Pittard: Personal Interaction in Search of Anthropometric Essences

CHAPTER 6: RACE IN CONTEMPORARY TURKEY
Race, and Ethnicity, and Nation
Race in Contemporary Turkey

CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX