Traveling Theories: The History of Anthropology in Turkey (1850-1950)
Final Report Abstract
This project critically examines the history of anthropology in Turkey between 1850 and 1950. Anthropology in Turkey is characterized by eclecticism: It combines evolutionary, nationalist, and modern paradigms and shapes them into a complex non-Western anthropological tradition. In the context of this project, anthropology was understood as a collective term that refers to the disciplines of folklore, ethnology and anthropology. The emerging landscape of anthropology and its particularities are shaped in Turkey by national projects, specific intellectual configurations, and the political constellations. The eclecticism of anthropology in Turkey stems, among other things, from the socio-cultural changes taking place in the political and cultural elites of the time in the late Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish Republic. Until now, Turkish anthropology has been largely overlooked in the historiography of anthropological disciplines for two reasons. First, Western theory and practice, through its dominance, managed to neglect the "other" anthropologies. At that time, Turkey was epistemologically considered only as an "anthropological field". Ethnographic knowledge was merely to be collected there. But Turkey was not considered a place of independent anthropological knowledge production. On the other hand, Turkish anthropologists themselves had a share in this invisibility. They failed to recognize the uniqueness of their disciplinary development and to relate in a positive way to the distinctive features that resulted from it. To address these facets of the invisibility of Turkish anthropology, the project adopts the analytical perspective of "world anthropologies". Drawing on postcolonial theories, this approach emphasizes the unequal distribution of power as a condition for the uneven development of anthropologies in different national contexts. Against this background, the project is able to bring to bear the autonomy of traditions in research and teaching in Turkish anthropology. A central assumption here is that Turkish anthropology flourished precisely through "traveling theory" (Said 1982, 1994). In this, Turkish anthropology negotiated various European ethnological traditions from the 1850s onward and modified them in creative ways. Through this original perspective on the dynamic anthropological tradition in Turkey, the project contributes to a decentralized anthropological historiography. Through five defining moments in the disciplinary history of Turkish anthropology, the project elaborates the transitions and upheavals in the meanings and uses of central concepts of the discipline, such as race, people, and nation.
Publications
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”Orientalism alla Turca”: Evolutionary Desires, Imperial Nostalgias, and Western Anxieties in Ahmed Midhat’s Avrupa’da Bir Cevelân. October 4, 2021.
Hande Birkalan-Gedik
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Disiplinler ve Post-Disipliner Tarihçeler: Kuram, Çeviri ve Kültürlerötesilik. Uluslararasi Kibris Universitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakultesi.
Birkalan-Gedik, Hande
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Eugène Pittard, Bayan Afet and Others:. Fabrics of Anthropological Knowledge, 38-67. Berghahn Books.
Birkalan-Gedik, Hande
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Traveling Theories and the Making of Post-Disciplinary Histories: Translation, Theorists, Theories and Concepts. Journal of Folklore Research, 62(1-2), 1-27.
Birkalan-Gedik, Hande
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Traveling Theories, Traveling Theorists: Seniha Tunakan, “die kleine Türkin” at the KWI-A at Ihnestraße 22–24 and at Ankara University. Journal of Folklore Research, 62(1-2), 137-169.
Birkalan-Gedik, Hande
