Culture construction through Halkevleri of Türkiye during the single-party period: A comparative study

This study deals with the culture construction process within the scope of citizen construction during the single-party period in Turkey, through the analysis of Halkevleri. A case study on Halkevleri is introduced with a theoretical basis over the issues of culture, the relationship between culture and politics, hegemony as a political struggle in the cultural sphere, and the contributions of culture to the nation-building process. Since Halkevleri had a critical position in both adult education and cultural education in the single-party period, it has been chosen for his study which is designed to build a cultural construction analysis. This study takes the analysis of Halkevleri in its first period between 1932-1951 into account. Since it is nearly impossible to reach the actors of the aforementioned period directly today, the study covers a historical perspective. In this regard, based on a qualitative method, the study tries to submit its claim through both a comparative analysis from an external example and a content analysis applied to the parliamentary records specific to Halkevleri. The second case analysis that will contribute to the comparative perspective is Dopolavoro culture organization established in 1925 in Italy. The reason why Dopolavoro is included in this study as a comparative unit stems from the fact that it was established with similar motives in similar periods with Halkevleri. It is also known that Dopolavoro had a widely accepted reputation as a success in cultural organizations around the world. The originality of the contributions throughout the study is not that all. The study also includes the content analysis obtained as a result of the examination of the records on the issue of Halkevleri, which were determined in 201 out of 1703 meetings in the six periods between 1932-1951 throughout TBMM database. The study tries to answer the following questions: How did the tools of culture construction through Halkevleri work in Turkey? How did the efforts to establish culture through Halkevleri find a social response? And how could this be measured? Focusing on culture construction by the state during the single-party period and the social response, this study aims to prove that the rapid changes to which cultural motives are subjected may not be accepted by the whole society and the citizens may not be transformed at the level as desired by the regime. A mixed method has been applied throughout the study, to achieve this result. Keywords: Culture, power, Halkevleri, hegemony, citizen construction, content analysis, comparative analysis.