articles/book chapters
Türkmen, Gülay. 2023 (forthcoming). “Türkiye’den Almanya’ya Göçün Değişen Yüzünü Yeniden Düşünmek” [Rethinking the Changing Face of Migration from Turkey to Germany]. Forthcoming in Türkiye’den ve Türkiye’ye Yüksek Niteliklilerin Göç Hareketleri [Highly-Skilled Migration to and from Turkey] edited by Didem Danış. Nika Publishing House, İstanbul.
Türkmen, Gülay. 2023 (forthcoming). "Reflexivity and Positionality in Qualitative Research: On Being an Outsider in the Field." In The Political Psychology of Kurds in Turkey: Critical Perspectives on Identity, Narratives, and Resistance edited by Ercan Şen et al, Palgrave MacMillan.
Abstract: Positionality matters in social scientific research. Qualitative scholars have long drawn attention to the impact of researchers’ multiple identities on research findings and knowledge production. They have also highlighted the intersectional, fluid, and context-dependent nature of positionality. In dialogue with this literature, this article acknowledges the ambivalence surrounding the insider/outsider dichotomy and focuses on being an “outsider”—as an ideal-typical category—when conducting ethnographic field research. Building on the author’s research experience among Kurdish religious elites in Southeastern Anatolia, where she was an outsider on many levels, it inquires the challenges and advantages of the “outsider” position. Through vignettes and dialogues from the field it provides insight into how to navigate the fragile ground of such a position.
Abstract: Positionality matters in social scientific research. Qualitative scholars have long drawn attention to the impact of researchers’ multiple identities on research findings and knowledge production. They have also highlighted the intersectional, fluid, and context-dependent nature of positionality. In dialogue with this literature, this article acknowledges the ambivalence surrounding the insider/outsider dichotomy and focuses on being an “outsider”—as an ideal-typical category—when conducting ethnographic field research. Building on the author’s research experience among Kurdish religious elites in Southeastern Anatolia, where she was an outsider on many levels, it inquires the challenges and advantages of the “outsider” position. Through vignettes and dialogues from the field it provides insight into how to navigate the fragile ground of such a position.
Türkmen, Gülay. 2021. "Negociando las fronteras simbolicas en la resolucion de conflictos: religion y etnicidad en el conflicto kurdo en Turquia." Pp. 359-390 in Postsecularismo y la religion vivida: aportes desde la sociologia cualitativa norteamericana, edited by David Smilde and Hugo Perez Hernaiz. abediciones: Universidad Catolica Andres Bello.
Turkmen, Gulay, and Shai Dromi. 2020. "What Does Trauma Have to Do with Politics? Cultural Trauma and the Displaced Founding Political Elites of Israel and Turkey." The Sociological Quarterly 61(1): 22-41.
Abstract: Recent political events, such as Brexit and Trump’s election, have inspired talk of collective trauma in academic publications and news outlets. Yet, scholars have been unclear about the processes that transform mundane political events into collective traumatic experiences. In this article, we ask how political factions come to interpret election outcomes as a trauma. We draw on cultural trauma theory to examine the ways state-founding political elites interpret their election losses. We show that such elites commemorate the loss by employing narratives that depict them as victims of unjust political processes, and simultaneously provide them with a sense of moral superiority. This enduring self-conception hinders subsequent efforts to draw new supporters or to change political strategies. We demonstrate this process using two empirical cases: the Israeli Labor Party and the Turkish Republican People’s Party, both of whom dominated their respective nations for decades until they were ousted through democratic elections. We suggest that cultural trauma theory can illuminate the reasons for some of the political deadlocks that shape newly founded democracies’ policies.
Abstract: Recent political events, such as Brexit and Trump’s election, have inspired talk of collective trauma in academic publications and news outlets. Yet, scholars have been unclear about the processes that transform mundane political events into collective traumatic experiences. In this article, we ask how political factions come to interpret election outcomes as a trauma. We draw on cultural trauma theory to examine the ways state-founding political elites interpret their election losses. We show that such elites commemorate the loss by employing narratives that depict them as victims of unjust political processes, and simultaneously provide them with a sense of moral superiority. This enduring self-conception hinders subsequent efforts to draw new supporters or to change political strategies. We demonstrate this process using two empirical cases: the Israeli Labor Party and the Turkish Republican People’s Party, both of whom dominated their respective nations for decades until they were ousted through democratic elections. We suggest that cultural trauma theory can illuminate the reasons for some of the political deadlocks that shape newly founded democracies’ policies.
Turkmen, Gulay and Sinem Adar. 2019. “Populism beyond the West: Dissonant Diversities and Fragmented Politics.” New Diversities 21(2).
Abstract: The cultural component of populism has so far received scant attention. Questions such as how populist discourse influences and is influenced by social relations, how it transforms and is transformed by citizens’ meanings and understandings as to “the people” and to each other remain to a large extent unanswered. We still know very little about how existing social cleavages shape the way the “people” is conceptualized by actors who deploy populist repertoires, as well as how populist discourse shapes existing social cleavages. Such an emphasis is especially important and necessary in understanding how populism operates beyond Western liberal democracies, especially in ethnically, religiously and linguistically diverse settings. Against this background, we focus on the relationship between populism and ethnic and religious diversity beyond Western Europe and the Americas. We are particularly interested in the following questions: What is the role of cultural and social grievances in the emergence and spread of populist discourses and vice versa? What differences, if any, are there between the form populism takes in historically diverse societies and the form it takes in societies where diversity is a fairly recent phenomenon related to immigration? How does populism relate to social, political, and affective polarization in post-imperial societies with multi-cultural populations?
Abstract: The cultural component of populism has so far received scant attention. Questions such as how populist discourse influences and is influenced by social relations, how it transforms and is transformed by citizens’ meanings and understandings as to “the people” and to each other remain to a large extent unanswered. We still know very little about how existing social cleavages shape the way the “people” is conceptualized by actors who deploy populist repertoires, as well as how populist discourse shapes existing social cleavages. Such an emphasis is especially important and necessary in understanding how populism operates beyond Western liberal democracies, especially in ethnically, religiously and linguistically diverse settings. Against this background, we focus on the relationship between populism and ethnic and religious diversity beyond Western Europe and the Americas. We are particularly interested in the following questions: What is the role of cultural and social grievances in the emergence and spread of populist discourses and vice versa? What differences, if any, are there between the form populism takes in historically diverse societies and the form it takes in societies where diversity is a fairly recent phenomenon related to immigration? How does populism relate to social, political, and affective polarization in post-imperial societies with multi-cultural populations?
Turkmen, Gulay. 2019. "Civil War and Religion: Turkey". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, edited by Paul Djupe and Gunes Murat Tezcur.
Abstract: Out of the 111 armed conflicts that took place between 1989 and 2000, only seven were interstate conflicts while the remaining were intrastate in nature. As a result, the last decade and a half witnessed a boom in the publication of works on civil wars. While the percentage of civil wars involving religion increased from 21% to 43% between the 1960s and 1990s, scholars have been rather slow in integrating the study of religion into the overall framework of conflict in general, and of civil wars in particular. Operating under the impact of the secularization thesis and treating religion as an aspect of ethnicity the literature on civil wars has, for a long time, embraced ethno-nationalism as its subject matter. Yet, since the early 2000s, there has been a rapid increase in the number of works focusing on religion and civil wars. While one branch treats religion as a trigger for and an exacerbating factor in conflict another focuses on religion as a conflict resolution tool. Turkey is an apt case to ponder the latter as several governments have deployed religion (namely, Sunni Islam) as a tool to suppress ethnic divisions for years. During the Justice and Party (AKP) rule,religion has gained even more visibility as a conflict resolution tool in the 33-year-long armed ethnic conflict between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan , PKK) and the Turkish armed forces. Yet, the role of religion in Turkey’s Kurdish conflict still remains understudied. An increased attention to this topic could deliver important insights not only for those who conduct research on the Kurdish conflict in Turkey specifically, but also for those who explore the role of religion in civil wars more generally.
Abstract: Out of the 111 armed conflicts that took place between 1989 and 2000, only seven were interstate conflicts while the remaining were intrastate in nature. As a result, the last decade and a half witnessed a boom in the publication of works on civil wars. While the percentage of civil wars involving religion increased from 21% to 43% between the 1960s and 1990s, scholars have been rather slow in integrating the study of religion into the overall framework of conflict in general, and of civil wars in particular. Operating under the impact of the secularization thesis and treating religion as an aspect of ethnicity the literature on civil wars has, for a long time, embraced ethno-nationalism as its subject matter. Yet, since the early 2000s, there has been a rapid increase in the number of works focusing on religion and civil wars. While one branch treats religion as a trigger for and an exacerbating factor in conflict another focuses on religion as a conflict resolution tool. Turkey is an apt case to ponder the latter as several governments have deployed religion (namely, Sunni Islam) as a tool to suppress ethnic divisions for years. During the Justice and Party (AKP) rule,religion has gained even more visibility as a conflict resolution tool in the 33-year-long armed ethnic conflict between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan , PKK) and the Turkish armed forces. Yet, the role of religion in Turkey’s Kurdish conflict still remains understudied. An increased attention to this topic could deliver important insights not only for those who conduct research on the Kurdish conflict in Turkey specifically, but also for those who explore the role of religion in civil wars more generally.
Turkmen, Gulay. 2018. "Negotiating Symbolic Boundaries in Conflict Resolution: Religion and Ethnicity in Turkey's Kurdish Conflict". Qualitative Sociology 41: 569-591.
Abstract: This article is an inquiry into understanding why supranational religious identity often fails to act as a conflict resolution tool in religiously homogenous ethnic conflicts. Narrowing its focus down to the role of religious elites as potential peacemakers in such conflict zones, it proposes the divergence in their conceptualizations of religious and ethnic identities as an explanatory factor. Building on 62 in-depth interviews conducted in Turkey with Sunni Muslim Kurdish and Turkish religious elites, it identifies a three-fold typology of religious and ethnic identities, as conceptualized by these elites: 1) religio-ethnic; 2) ethno-religious; 3) religious. After exemplifying each category with interview data it demonstrates the role these distinctions play in preventing the successful implementation of “Muslim fraternity” as a solution to the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. With these findings, the article contributes to both the literature on religion in conflict resolution and that on identity formation and boundary making. While it invites the former to turn its gaze from macro-level structural factors to meso- and micro-level cultural factors in analyzing religious elite involvement in conflict resolution, it invites the latter to stop employing “ethnicity” as an all-encompassing term (that covers a vast array of identity markers including religion) and focus, instead, on the gradations between religion and ethnicity as sources of identity.
Abstract: This article is an inquiry into understanding why supranational religious identity often fails to act as a conflict resolution tool in religiously homogenous ethnic conflicts. Narrowing its focus down to the role of religious elites as potential peacemakers in such conflict zones, it proposes the divergence in their conceptualizations of religious and ethnic identities as an explanatory factor. Building on 62 in-depth interviews conducted in Turkey with Sunni Muslim Kurdish and Turkish religious elites, it identifies a three-fold typology of religious and ethnic identities, as conceptualized by these elites: 1) religio-ethnic; 2) ethno-religious; 3) religious. After exemplifying each category with interview data it demonstrates the role these distinctions play in preventing the successful implementation of “Muslim fraternity” as a solution to the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. With these findings, the article contributes to both the literature on religion in conflict resolution and that on identity formation and boundary making. While it invites the former to turn its gaze from macro-level structural factors to meso- and micro-level cultural factors in analyzing religious elite involvement in conflict resolution, it invites the latter to stop employing “ethnicity” as an all-encompassing term (that covers a vast array of identity markers including religion) and focus, instead, on the gradations between religion and ethnicity as sources of identity.
Turkmen, Gulay and Hayri Kirbasoglu. 2018. “Political Islam in Turkey.” Pp. 93-106 in Authoritarianism and Resistance in Turkey: Conversations on Democratic and Social Challenges, edited by Esra Ozyurek, Emrah Altindis, Gaye Ozpinar. Switzerland: Springer International.
Abstract: This piece discusses the current trajectory of Islam in Turkey with Hayri Kirbasoglu, professor of theology at Ankara University. One of the main figures of the “Ankara school” in theology, known for their liberal interpretation of Islam, Kirbasoglu was among the founders of HAS Parti (The People’s Voice Party), a pro-Islamic party which was later coopted by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Coming from an Islamic background, but remaining staunchly critical of the AKP’s interpretation and implementation of Islam, Kirbasoglu provides a refreshing account of “Islam’s crisis” in the world and in Turkey and, as a Muslim reformer, offers ways out of it.
Abstract: This piece discusses the current trajectory of Islam in Turkey with Hayri Kirbasoglu, professor of theology at Ankara University. One of the main figures of the “Ankara school” in theology, known for their liberal interpretation of Islam, Kirbasoglu was among the founders of HAS Parti (The People’s Voice Party), a pro-Islamic party which was later coopted by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Coming from an Islamic background, but remaining staunchly critical of the AKP’s interpretation and implementation of Islam, Kirbasoglu provides a refreshing account of “Islam’s crisis” in the world and in Turkey and, as a Muslim reformer, offers ways out of it.
Turkmen-Dervisoglu, Gulay. 2013. “Coming to Terms with a Difficult Past: The Trauma of the Assassination of Hrant Dink and Its Repercussions on Turkish National Identity”. Nations and Nationalism, 19 (4): 674-692.
Abstract: This paper takes as its subject the question of why some nations are less willing to acknowledge past atrocities. To answer that question, it focuses on the assassination of Hrant Dink – a Turkish-Armenian journalist – and its repercussions on Turkish national identity. Scrutinising newspaper articles written before and after the assassination (2004–2007), it casts a detailed glance at the struggle between two carrier groups – pro- and anti-acknowledgement groups – and argues that the assassination increased the likelihood of the acknowledgement of the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 by creating a cultural trauma informed by collective guilt. However, the relief generated by the funeral, combined with the strength of the master commemorative narrative regarding the mass killings, decreased that likelihood, and despite the huge public reaction created by the assassination there was no attempt at acknowledgement. As such, the paper contributes to our understanding of the trauma of perpetrators and claims that, in addition to other factors listed by earlier studies, cultural trauma is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for coming to terms with difficult pasts.
Abstract: This paper takes as its subject the question of why some nations are less willing to acknowledge past atrocities. To answer that question, it focuses on the assassination of Hrant Dink – a Turkish-Armenian journalist – and its repercussions on Turkish national identity. Scrutinising newspaper articles written before and after the assassination (2004–2007), it casts a detailed glance at the struggle between two carrier groups – pro- and anti-acknowledgement groups – and argues that the assassination increased the likelihood of the acknowledgement of the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 by creating a cultural trauma informed by collective guilt. However, the relief generated by the funeral, combined with the strength of the master commemorative narrative regarding the mass killings, decreased that likelihood, and despite the huge public reaction created by the assassination there was no attempt at acknowledgement. As such, the paper contributes to our understanding of the trauma of perpetrators and claims that, in addition to other factors listed by earlier studies, cultural trauma is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for coming to terms with difficult pasts.
Gorski, Philip and Gulay Turkmen-Dervisoglu. 2013. “Religion, Nationalism and Violence: An Integrated Approach.” Annual Review of Sociology, 39: 193-210.
Abstract: Scholarly work on the nexus of religion, nationalism, and violence is currently fragmented along disciplinary and theoretical lines. In sociology, history, and anthropology, a macro-culturalist approach reigns; in political science, economics, and international relations, a micro-rationalist approach is dominant. Recent attempts at a synthesis ignore religion or fold it into ethnicity. A coherent synthesis capable of adequately accounting for religious-nationalist violence must not only integrate micro and macro, cultural and strategic approaches; it must also include a meso level of elite conflict and boundary maintenance and treat the religious field as potentially autonomous from the cultural field.
Abstract: Scholarly work on the nexus of religion, nationalism, and violence is currently fragmented along disciplinary and theoretical lines. In sociology, history, and anthropology, a macro-culturalist approach reigns; in political science, economics, and international relations, a micro-rationalist approach is dominant. Recent attempts at a synthesis ignore religion or fold it into ethnicity. A coherent synthesis capable of adequately accounting for religious-nationalist violence must not only integrate micro and macro, cultural and strategic approaches; it must also include a meso level of elite conflict and boundary maintenance and treat the religious field as potentially autonomous from the cultural field.
Gorski, Philip and Gulay Turkmen-Dervisoglu. 2012. “Religion, Nationalism, and International Security: Creation Myths and Social Mechanisms.” Pp. 136-148 in the Routledge Handbook of Religion and Security. Eds. Chris Seiple, Dennis Hoover and Pauletta Otis.
Abstract: This essay argues that the study of religious nationalism and international security would benefit from greater attention to what might be called meso-level mechanisms and factors, such as elites and ideology. We advance two main arguments: first, that insurgent forms of religious nationalism come into being as a result of strategic alliances between religious and political elites, typically ones who feel excluded from power; and second, that religious nationalist violence tends to be triggered by certain catalytic events and occurs around particular geographical flash points.
Abstract: This essay argues that the study of religious nationalism and international security would benefit from greater attention to what might be called meso-level mechanisms and factors, such as elites and ideology. We advance two main arguments: first, that insurgent forms of religious nationalism come into being as a result of strategic alliances between religious and political elites, typically ones who feel excluded from power; and second, that religious nationalist violence tends to be triggered by certain catalytic events and occurs around particular geographical flash points.
Turkmen-Dervisoglu, Gulay. 2011. “Lebanon: Parody of A Nation? A Closer Look at Lebanese Confessionalism.” Yale Review of International Affairs, 2(1): 61-72.
Abstract: This paper argues that along with the civil war and the corruption of internal and external political actors, confessionalism is what hurts Lebanon more than anything else. After taking a close look at the complex relationship between confessionalism and Lebanese nationalism, it proceeds to inquire why the former has survived in Lebanon despite years of sectarian violence. The paper concludes with a discussion on how confessionalism could be abolished.
Abstract: This paper argues that along with the civil war and the corruption of internal and external political actors, confessionalism is what hurts Lebanon more than anything else. After taking a close look at the complex relationship between confessionalism and Lebanese nationalism, it proceeds to inquire why the former has survived in Lebanon despite years of sectarian violence. The paper concludes with a discussion on how confessionalism could be abolished.
book reviews
2021
“Revolution in Syria: Identity, Networks, and Repression", by Kevin Mazur. The Cambridge Review of International Affairs. (forthcoming).
2020
“Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison”, by Ahmet T. Kuru. Peace Review 31(4): 575-579.
2017
“The Headscarf Debates: Conflicts of National Belonging”, by Anna C. Korteweg and Gokce Yurdakul. International Feminist Journal of Politics 19(2): 272-273.
2013
“Soldiers, Spies and Statesmen: Egypt’s Road to Revolt” by Hazem Kandil. LSE Review of Books.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/04/21/book-review-soldiers-spies-and-statesmen-egypts-road-to-revolt/
2010
“Religious Politics and Secular States: Egypt, India and the United States” by Scott W. Hibbard. Tarih: Graduate History Journal, 2: 131-134.
“Revolution in Syria: Identity, Networks, and Repression", by Kevin Mazur. The Cambridge Review of International Affairs. (forthcoming).
2020
“Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison”, by Ahmet T. Kuru. Peace Review 31(4): 575-579.
2017
“The Headscarf Debates: Conflicts of National Belonging”, by Anna C. Korteweg and Gokce Yurdakul. International Feminist Journal of Politics 19(2): 272-273.
2013
“Soldiers, Spies and Statesmen: Egypt’s Road to Revolt” by Hazem Kandil. LSE Review of Books.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/04/21/book-review-soldiers-spies-and-statesmen-egypts-road-to-revolt/
2010
“Religious Politics and Secular States: Egypt, India and the United States” by Scott W. Hibbard. Tarih: Graduate History Journal, 2: 131-134.