M.A. Theses

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A comparative study on the reputational trajectories of Turkish women intellectuals from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2015., 2015.) Şaşmaz, Hale.; Büyükokutan, Barış.
How do woman intellectuals go beyond the sexism of intellectual field and achieve fame? To answer this question, this thesis examines the reputational trajectories of Turkish woman intellectuals from the late nineteenth century Ottoman Empire to the early Republican era through biographical and archival material. It focuses on five intellectual women who have been called the Great Women: Fatma Aliye, Emine Semiye, Nigar bint-i Osman, Halide Edib and Nezihe Muhiddin. Analysing women’s reputational trajectories in three periods -the Hamidian Era, the Second Constitutional Era and the Early Republican Era-, this study identifies four strategies the Great Women employed while negotiating patriarchal practices in intellectual milieus: collaboration, acquiescence, subversion and defiance. The findings show a) that strategy is indeed decisive in fighting patriarchy and what determines success is one’s resources and how she puts them into use and b) that the proper evaluation of changing resources in historical and political transitions is crucial both in making reputations and furthering them.
A new episode of displacement :|the protracted exile of Syrian Kurds in Istanbul’s Demirkapı neighbourhood
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2019., 2019.) Keği, Adnan.; Gökarıksel, Saygun.
Although this is not the first time Kurds are being displaced from the lands they live in, the recent mass displacement since the beginning of the Syrian civil war is unprecedented in scale, considering the resultant mass cross-border mobility. Dealing with the issue of displacement that has such a broader historical background, the present study is the result of an ethnographic field research with the Syrian Kurdish migrants living in Demirkapi neighbourhood of Bağcılar district in Istanbul. Demirkapı happens to be a neighbourhood densely populated by the Kurds displaced internally in the early 1990s. With a combination of observations from the neighbourhood, semi-structured in-depth interviews and narrative interviews carried out mostly with Syrian Kurdish neighbours -but also with a lesser number of ‘local’ Kurdish residents, this research mainly aims to scrutinize the complexity of the individual and collective experiences of forced displacement and exile across the nation state borders. The study also aims to develop a critique of humanitarian reductionism of refugee management and studies by focusing on everyday dynamics at a neighbourhood setting. Migratory trajectories of the migrants that have ended up in this specific urban space and everyday encounters are central in the scope of this study. The individual experiences under the “refugee” regime of Turkey as well as under the cheap and informal labour regime are also worked on throughout the study to give an account of the lives of Syrian Kurdish migrants in Istanbul.
A sociologically interpretative approach to the Fettullah Gülen community movement
(Thesis (M.A.)- Bogazici University. Institute of Social Sciences, 1997., 1997.) Kömeçoğlu, Uğur.; Göle, Nilüfer,
The aim of this study is to draw a discursive profile of Fethullah Güllen community movement with respect to cultural meanings that are constructed to shape the Islamic identity of the community participants. First, I have tried to describe the dynamic process of meaning formation through religio-conservative values. Secondly, I have contextualized this problematic/ on the changing nature of public sphere by depicting the transformative influence of sacred-private over the profane-public. I showed that this community movement tries to carve a space for the creation of a conservative model of public sphere through the discursive practices of an Islamic inner world. The research this thesis based on was conducted between January 1996 and July 1997, in Istanbul.
A study of the Vakıf institution in the traditional Ottoman city
(Thesis (M.A.)- Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Scieences, 1986., 1986.) Kuleli, Nurcan.; Öncü, Ayşe.
Academies of possibilities:|An analysis of intellectual field, social movements, and knowledge production in Turkey
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2019., 2019.) Ünal, İnci.; Candan, Ayfer Bartu.
This thesis compares and contrasts the intellectual field in the 1980s and today by examining the alternative academic structures founded in these two periods. The thesis analyzes these two contexts separately and traces the influence of the increasing precarization of intellectual labor throughout the world and the historical particularities of Turkey on the transformation of the intellectual field since the 1980s. At the same time, by dwelling on the changing discourses of social movements in the world, the thesis aims to show that the organizational models of the alternative academic structures in Turkey have changed significantly since the 1980s. Lastly, the thesis aims to show the influence of these organizations on the knowledge production in the country through the space they offer for the flourishment of new ideas. The thesis argues that these structures can be regarded as “academies of possibilities” because of the promises they offer for the academic and cultural circles in the country.
Actors’ career trajectories :|role diversification patterns and relational dynamics in the TV-acting field in Turkey
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Girgin, Yasemin.; Kuyucu, Tuna.
An important determinant of status and success in an actor’s professional life is the ability to play a great diversity of roles. Role diversification demonstrates actors’ talent, increases their status within the field, and consequently improves their social and economic conditions. A serious obstacle to achieving these is what I call “role stickiness”, where actors get repeatedly cast for certain kinds of roles. Despite the importance of role diversity and stickiness, however, little is known about the actual dynamics that shape them. In this thesis, I uncover the sociological determinants of differential role diversity levels between actors by tracing the careers of 112 actors (56 male, 56 female) working in Turkish TV-serials. I demonstrate that gender is a crucial variable in shaping role diversity levels, with female actors having significantly lower scores than their male counterparts. Education is another variable that impacts diversity scores of actors, but the returns to education are also unequal across male and female actors. Furthermore, the 21 in-depth interviews I conduct with actors and decision-makers such as agents, casting directors, directors, and producers from the field show that the lack of talent demonstration opportunities for female actors lower their meritocratic agency in shaping their career trajectories and legitimizes the advantaged positions of male actors in the field.
Alevist politics of place and the construction of cemevis in Turkey
(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2006., 2006.) Es, Murat.; Candan, Ayfer Bartu.
This thesis investigates some aspects of the reinstitutionalization process that the Alevi identity has gone through in the post-1980 period by focusing on the emergence of cemevis (houses of gathering) in urban public space. I look at various processes such as the displacement of Alevi communities to urban centers, the advent of a unitary signifier of Alevism, and the development of a new governmentality targeting the Alevi population by the Turkish state, through which cemevis have become institutional sites that signify Alevism and serve as focus for Alevist mobilization. I gathered my data by combining fieldwork that involved participant observation, in-depth and semi structured interviews with the analysis of the published material on Alevism, Alevis and cemevis. The fieldwork mostly concentrated on the Alibeyköy and Okmeydanı Cemevis. In this thesis, I suggest that cemevis do not simply provide space for the realization of communal services, but also play an important role in the public representation of Alevism(s) as they serve the reification of certain practices as "proper" manifestations of Aleviness. In cemevis new institutional positions are becoming apparent and various Alevi beliefs and practices have been subject to restructuration in accordance with the novel institutional frameworks Alevi groups have encountered as a result of increasing interaction with various state agencies and the Sunni majority. My findings demonstrate that cemevis have been conducive to the organization of a secularized way of life for Alevis in combination with the development of a new Alevi religiosity practiced at the individual level.
An analysis of discourses and policies on violence against women in Turkey
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2011., 2011.) Tümer, Öykü.; Sirman, Nükhet,
This thesis aims to analyze discourses and policies on violence against women. Violence against women has become a significant issue in Turkey’s agenda after 1980s with the struggles of feminist women. Although the “women question” had always been an important matter of debate in accordance with the modernization process, violence against women had never been part of it. This thesis aims to analyze violence against women as constitutive of women’s place in the family as well in the society through focusing on different state policies and feminist theory and activism. In the thesis, the dialogical relation between the state and the feminist movement that determined the context in discussions on violence against women is analyzed. The role of different discourses in determining the way violence against women is analyzed. In this respect, the legal and medical discourse in constituting the framework of discourses and policies on violence against women are discussed. In addition, seeing violence against women as the "other’s" problem and the implication of such an understanding is analyzed.
An ethnographic study of social bonds In collective confinement
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) Ulutaş, Mete.; Gökarıksel, Saygun.
This thesis explores the everyday life of political prisoners and the effects of incarceration after their release. In order to achieve this aim, the study employs the ethnographic data collected in the Silivri Prison and through participant observation and in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with the prison inmates after their release. This study explores the prison and post-prison life of political prisoners collectively incarcerated in a ward. In particular, the study analyzes the imprisonment process by focusing on two significant events: the arrest and the release. In doing so, my analysis aims to show how political prisoners form social bonds among themselves and the effects of incarceration on their subjectivity after their release. In order to explore the subjectivation processes of political prisoners, my study analyzes the social-material setting of the prison space, the organization of everyday life in prison, and its contestation between the prison administration and the political prisoners. By elaborating on collective self-organization practices, identification, and subjectivation processes of political prisoners, the thesis examines how they make sense of their imprisonment. The study explores the reintroduction of the family as an institution where care relations are primarily designated and how political prisoners experience the public space in the post-prison life. This thesis proposes to take political prisoners as active agents of transformation within the prison space and beyond the narratives of total destitution and suffering. The main argument of the study is that the relations of care among the political prisoners transform the political ward into an intimate space.
An ethnography of collaboration :|reflecting on the assemblages of projects for gender mainstreaming in Turkey
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2022., 2022.) İmer, Öznur İlke.; Ahıska, Meltem.
This thesis examines the establishment and implementation of gender mainstreaming (GM) projects enabled by the collaboration between the civil society, public and private sector in Turkey and the new dynamics they create. This study, which aims to observe how gender equality is (re)framed in different contexts and how collaboration is practiced, is based on participant observation carried out in GM activities, and in-depth interviews conducted with actors who play an active role in the establishment of this terrain. First, the thesis introduces a normative framework that includes the new development paradigm, the new configuration of capitalism, and project feminism, with a focus on Turkey’s interaction with this framework. In other words, while illuminating the complex, intertwined processes that contribute to the formation of gender mainstreaming, it proposes to analyze this terrain through this framework and emphasizes the specificity of the Turkish case. Then, it discusses the conflicts that have occurred in the contact zones where different actors with different agendas come together as well as the historical background of these conflicts, how they have been resolved, and the new dynamics that have emerged. Finally, the thesis examines the design phase of the projects, the construction of the trainings, and the roles of the trainers while revealing the informal processes that are not included in the public documents but ensure the formation and continuation of the projects. In sum, this thesis follows the movement of gender within the boundaries drawn by a paradigm that has become dominant today and the questions it produces.
Another story of the daily circulation of Özgür Gündem : affective materiality
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2011., 2011.) Bayram, Sidar.; Sirman, Nükhet,
This thesis aims to tell the story and history of the daily newspaper Özgür Gündem in the first half of the 1990s, by focusing on the everyday practices organized around the circulation of the newspaper, in order to track down in which ways Özgür Gündem as a material affected the capacities of other bodies and materials to act and relate. As the first alternative press writing on the Kurdish problem in Turkey, Özgür Gündem's circulation carved out a space for the confrontation between the state targeting the circulation of Özgür Gündem and the newspaper community who exposed themselves to state violence for enabling its circulation. The affective density of Özgür Gündem, which exposed the bodies to state violence is analyzed in terms of the affective economies of sorrow (an affect which diminishes the power to live) activated by state violence and of joy (an affect which increases the power to endure) activated by sublimation. The antagonistic character of the affective economies of sorrow and joy constituted alongside the circulation of Özgür Gündem, points towards the ways in which Özgür Gündem intensified practices of state violence while trying to organize a voice against them. From 1992 to 1995, its circulation left behind several bodies dead, disappeared, tortured, humiliated, imprisoned, shops burned down, buildings blown up and so on. This process coupled with increasing censorship, the introduction of MED TV and the radicalization of the newspaper's attitude; the conjuncture of all these processes resulted in the drastic decrease in Özgür Gündem's affective capacities. While Özgür Gündem's successors continued to be published with different names, the generic name for all of them is still known as Özgür Gündem. The story and history of Özgür Gündem is that of a historical gesture for witnessing and communicat
Assessing the disabled, making ‘the State’
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2012., 2012.) Evren, Can.; Candan, Ayfer Bartu.
This thesis aims to analyze the contemporary framework and practices of disability classification and assessment in Turkey from a political anthropological perspective. The practices of assessment and classification are considered as governmental interfaces; that is, as determining the modes in which citizens encounter the state, and in which “the state” makes its population legible and governable. Disability as it is being re-defined, becomes an interface of encounters, which mutually construct new forms of statecraft and new forms of citizenship. The thesis maps out the forms of discourses and practices that emerge with this new classification framework in a three-fold perspective; first, from the perspective of governors, as the policy-makers who introduced this new framework; then from that of doctors and officers in a provincial state hospital, who take on the duty of assessors, day-to-day appliers of this new framework within the institutional conditions of state hospitals, which are undergoing a large-scale transformation; lastly, the thesis moves to the perspective of citizens, who apply for being assessed as disabled, to the everyday experiences of procedures of assessment and the mode of sharing these experiences online, through a which novel forms of disabled communities arise. Throughout this three-fold perspective, this thesis aims to map out a relational epistemology of state-making and cultural practices of experiencing the modern state. It is argued through this mapping, that the re-definition of disability within this new framework and the restructuring of the state-citizen relations in contemporary Turkey are co-constitutive, and the one cannot be understood without the other. Consequently, disability can no longer be understood only as a medical or social phenomena; it involves a complex interaction of bodies, cultures, politics and socialities.
Attempts at constructing counter-space :|a comparative study of two Istanbul neighborhoods
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2019., 2019.) Dere, Doğukan.; Kuyucu, Tuna.; Eder, Mine,
This thesis analyzes the historical processes of counter-space experiments in two gecekondu neighborhoods of Istanbul: 1 Mayıs (Mustafa Kemal) and Küçük Armutlu. Unplanned urbanization, as a result of capitalist uneven development, has led to the formation of gecekondu neighborhoods all over Istanbul since the 1950s. From the moment of their formation gecekondus faced the threat of demolition due to their unauthorized status and other legal problems. The people of gecekondu neighborhoods developed different strategies in order to survive as a neighborhood. These strategies included patronage relations with legal populist parties as well as extra-legal institutions such as land mafias, forming their own organizations to strug gle for their right for housing and legalization, etc. This thesis investigates the histor ically and spatially specific strategies developed by the actors within the neighbor hoods of 1 Mayıs and Küçük Armutlu neighborhoods. These strategies are discussed as instances of ―counter-space formation‖, and later on counter-space consolidation or dissolution. The thesis presents four dynamics of the formation and permanency of the counter-spaces in these two neighborhoods: i) the demolition threats they faced ii) the legal status of these settlements iii) the structure of the organizations inhabitants have formed to protect their housing rights iv) the organization of the space, especially in a political and symbolic manner. It offers a detailed comparative analysis of the two cases based on the proposed four axes to explain why the coun ter-space formed in Küçük Armutlu has survived in the face of various threats while in 1 Mayıs it has failed and gave way to a commodified land and housing market.
Bargaining between Islam and Kemalism: an investigation of official Islam through Friday sermons
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2011., 2011.) Kenar, Ceren.; Keyder, Çağlar.
The main objective of this thesis is to explore the Turkish state‟s attempt to regulate Islam through an analysis of the regulation of Friday sermons in Turkey. Drawing on the records of disciplinary measures implemented by the Presidency of Religious Affairs (PRA) and in-depth interviews conducted with imams in Turkey, the thesis argues that the Republic developed strategies to realize a state centralization of religion. This is corroborated by the high compliance rate of imams with the content of the sermons prepared by the PRA in the absence of serious inspection mechanisms until relatively recently. The compliance of imams to the sermons delivered by the state implies that a distinct (nation-)statist disposition has been approved by the imams themselves as well, and hence that the republic has managed to create the “republican” imams.
Becoming individuals or the endless discovery: the reconstruction of feminine subjectivities through depression narratives in Turkey
(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2006., 2006.) Bakırcan, Sündüz Şule.; Ahıska, Meltem.
This study aims to analyze the tension between femininity and the psychology discourse in Turkey through women's narratives about the depression. This thesis aims to show that the norm of the individual self employed by the psychology discourse opens a gap between women and the norm of psychologically healthy self. The practices of psychology operate with the premise of closing this gap and of alleviating the women's psychological burden which is caused by the pathriarchal norms. However, this thesis claims that the psychology discourse creates new burdens and conflicts for women with its basic tenet: the individual self. This thesis aims to show these, by analysing how women relate to this norm and the psychology discourse. How they retell their live stories around the norms and definitions of psychology is the main question of this thesis. I argue that the discourse of psychology opens up a new space for women to talk about the unspeakable parts of their lives and through this new space it regulates femininity and/but reconstructs the existing gender norms.
Belonging to Imbros: citizenship and sovereignty in the Turkish Republic
(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2003., 2003.) Babül, Elif Müyesser.; Sirman, Nükhet,
This study aims to analyse the narratives and practices of belonging in Imbros, and the implications of those narratives and practices of belonging related to the larger issues of governmentality and sovereignty in Turkey in general. Based on the ethnographic analysis of the island along with the narrative analysis of the interviews conducted during the fieldwork, it intends to address migration and belonging as issues of governmentality and sovereignty. In that sense, the thesis aims to problematize the concept of citizenship with regard to its relation to power and authority. It claims that the emergence of citizenship in the republican Turkey refers to a cultural process of subjectivation and a form of governmentality through the regulation of the legitimate way of belonging to a place within the national borders.Through the definition of Imbros in terms of marginal and exceptional, where the contestations over belonging take place currently, this thesis argues that looking at the ways in which these terms operate on the island reveals the undeclared of the republican citizenship and governmentality related to ethnicity, religion, nativeness, land and locality.
Between a refuge and a stepping stone :|an organisational analysis of underground music in Turkey
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2020., 2020.) Ferel, Günseli Naz.; Kuyucu, Tuna.
This thesis is focusing on an organisational and discursive analysis of a field of cultural production: the underground music scene in Turkey. As a distinct cultural production, the underground is shaped by its autonomous character from larger fields of economy, culture and politics. The research is based on a two-year-long participant observation in the subject field and nineteen in-depth interviews conducted throughout this period. The organisational analysis includes an examination and categorisation of different types of cooperation by focusing on processes of gathering, division of labour, decision-making and financial arrangements. The discursive analysis clarifies the most common value judgements operating in the scene, relating to different practices of inclusivity and collaboration. Through illuminating the correspondences between organisational structures and dominant discourses in the underground music scene, this research offers a distinct approach to the social process in the making of cultural products.
Between desire and truth: the narrative resolution of modern-traditional dichotomy in Asmalı Konak
(Thesis (M.A.)-Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2006., 2005.) Akınerdem, Zeyneb Feyza.; Sirman, Nükhet,
This thesis seeks to analyze a television serial Asmalı Konak, which has been aired in Turkey for two years and become the most popular television serial during this period. Asmalı Konak is worth examining as a cultural text, which raises crucial questions concerning the modern-traditional dichotomy in Turkey, which has been the uppermost conflict to be resolved to become properly modern in the nationalist imaginary of Turkey. In order to answer the question why Asmalı Konak has been so popular, I follow an ethnographic approach. I first analyze the visual, generic and narrative qualities of the serial. The visual aspects are handled as the setting of the narrative. For the generic analysis, I compare the genres of soap opera and melodrama arguing that the genre has to do with the wider social context. Further, I make a narrative analysis arguing that Asmalı Konak is a story of change that is constructed through the narrative structure that involves conflict resolution processes. After looking at how the text is encoded, I undertake a qualitative research to investigate how it is decoded. I conducted four focus group interviews with the middle classwoman viewers of Asmalı Konak. How they decode the conflict resolution processes, and how they assess the characters within those processes are the questions I seek to answer in my analysis of the ethnographic data. I argue that there are two registers according to which the viewers comment on the narrative: register of truth and register of desire. In my analysis ofthe decoding process, I elaborate on how they construe the narrative according to these registers.
Border building and breaking practices on the Turkish-Syrian border
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2017., 2017.) Kıyanç, Yakup.; Candan, Ayfer Bartu.
This study aims to analyze border building and breaking practices at the Turkish- Syrian border in the context of the Mür itpınar-Kobanê border region. After the first chapter of this study, which explains the border theory and terminology in detail, the second chapter deals with border building practices –chronologically boundary stones, barbed wire, landmines, watch towers, border gates, and the wall with its most recent form- carried out by the state from the early Republican era to this day. Besides, in this chapter, I have benefited from the Separation Wall in Palestine as one of the similar cases around the world. The last chapter focuses on border breaking practices of people of the border region as opposed to border building practices of the state. After an analysis of cross-border economic, cultural, and political relations maintained by people of the border region despite the border, the chapter introduces the smuggling and political resistance in detail as border breaking practices. My main argument based on the field research in and observations from the region is that border building practices of the Turkish State aim to cut the communication between the Kurds in the region (Turkey and Syria). I raise this argument by concentrating on the wall the Turkish State has started to build after the Syrian civil war.
Building a past: Cultural heritage, imagining, and marketing memory in Adana
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences, 2018., 2018.) İlhan, Hikmet.; Ahıska, Meltem.; Gökarıksel, Saygun.
This thesis examines the role of historical Adana Tepebağ houses in the imagination of social memory and cultural heritage by exploring how the houses are marketed as both emotional instruments and economic investments. It analyzes the functions of places and materiality by treating Tepebağ houses as material traces of the past where different narratives unfold. My research is based on interviews I conducted with the residents of Tepebağ neighborhood and with state officials in charge of the Culture Street Project in 2017. I pay special attention to the dynamic interrelation between personal and local narratives, and imagination and materiality. My thesis will contribute to the scholarship on history and place memory by showing how place memory functions as a destabilizing or supplementary tool against circulated narratives in social memory and historical accounts.

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