The role of clothing in identity building in multicultural societies: Ottoman-Turkish modernization

This research analyzed how dress codes in the Ottoman millet (religious community) system built on communitarian multiculturalism to make the differences between religious communities visible and perpetual were transformed through modernization. In other words, this system was examined in the context of the multiculturalism paradigm. Then the consequences of the Ottoman-Turkish modernization, including the establishment of the Republic of Turkey envisaging citizens' equality, were elaborated. Therefore, this research is an original one when the lack of comparisons between the Ottoman millet system and the Turkish nation-state in the axis of dressing, identity, multiculturalism and nationalism taken into consideration. The study, which focuses on the diversity of clothing in the Ottoman Empire, which ruled vast geography and many communities, was limited to Istanbul, the capital of the Empire. In this context, the Orthodox, Armenian and Jewish millets, that had dense populations in Istanbul, as well as the Muslims, who were the dominant element of the Empire, were examined. The social change had gained momentum with the modernization movement that started in the 18th century during Selim III and Mahmut II's reigns. In that context, the effect of modernization on clothing was striking. For this reason, most of the images exemplifying the traditional clothing of the religious communities studied were selected from the 18th and 19th centuries. The universalization of clothing via modernization in Turkey made the dress more accessible to the masses. This also affected the identity of the individual in Ottoman and Turkish societies dramatically. As a result of the comparative analysis of these effects, it was concluded that the replacement of communitarian multiculturalism with the modern nation-state via the modernization process made clothing less effective in the expression of individuals' identities and social imagination.