Constructions of "tradition":Cultural productions in the field of "tasavvuf music" in Turkey in the early 2000s

This study aims to make an analysis of the "field of tasavvuf music" in Turkey in early 2000s, based on and inspired by Bourdieu's theory of field of cultural production. The term "tasavvuf music" is a vogue concept, which refers the "lodge music" in relation to its Ottoman past, yet was invented in the 1960s and 70s to bypass the threatening connotation of the term "lodge". Popularized after the 1980s, the term was adopted in the context of complex relationships of the late Ottoman and early Turkish modernization experience with the Turkish maqam music. Yet significantly popularized especially after the 2000s, the term provides a field for the researchers, by which social aspects of music can be grasped in the changing historical processes. The concept of tradition, on the other hand, is used by the musical agents of this field to refer a unique musical culture encompassing "tasavvuf music". Contrary to the prevailing use of the concept in social sciences taking tradition as a composite whole, however, this study approaches the concept as a set of discursive practices supporting the positions of social/cultural agents. In this way, the concept of tradition helps us to analyze these positions in relation to a broader historical and actual context. Focusing on the positions that have developed in the past and the present, yet both existing in the current field, therefore, the study aims to analyze the cultural struggles within the "field of tasavvuf music", by relating them to a more general economic and political field. Here, the term traditionalization needs mentioning, as it refers the cultural implementations of a particular political and economic power, which has been dominating the cultural life in Turkey since the early 2000s. In other words, positions of the field agents with respect to the concept of tradition are encompassed with the practices of traditionalization in the current cultural, political and economic life. Therefore, this analysis both includes the relations of the positions with each other and with the practices of traditionalization, hence with a larger economic and political context. In this way, the analysis of the "field of tasavvuf music" helps us both to understand the different discursive practices of the concept of tradition, and to relate them with the current cultural and political life in Turkey. Key Words: tradition, traditionalization, tasavvuf music, Turkish maqam music, Bourdieu, field, field of cultural production.