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A rugged borderland of the Empire: the Rhodopean district of Rupçoz in the Late Ottoman Period (1878-1908)
This dissertation examines a Rhodopean district of the Ottoman Empire which was located in the Ottoman-Bulgarian borderland between 1878 and 1908. Focusing on the Rhodope Resistance and the Republic of Tımraş, it investigates the agency of the local actors, particularly the Pomaks, in the making of the boundary. Based on Ottoman and British archival documents, contemporary travel accounts, newspapers, and ethnographic studies, this dissertation explores the transformation caused by the emergence of the border and its social, economic, and cultural effects on the inhabitants of Rupçoz. By combining borderland studies with social history, this research goes beyond nationalistic approaches used in explaining local resistance movements in the Balkans and aims to reveal the power dynamics and the complex relationships between different communities in the region. It asserts that, specifically for the Pomaks, security concerns, economic and commercial interests, and local power dynamics were more important than ethnic concerns. It challenges the idea that the borders were delimited only by politicians. Instead, it argues that both Muslim and Christian populations of the borderland had agency in the formation of the border. Contrary to the literature which demonstrates the Muslims in the Balkans as a uniform group of people who were the victims of the Bulgarian/Macedonian "brutality," it suggests a complex network of relations that maintained the rural hierarchy between the oppressor and the oppressed.
The flow of progress: The Kayseri Sümerbank Textile Factory and the politics of water in 1930s statist Turkey
This thesis examines the economic and environmental history of Turkey during the early Republican period (1923-1950), with a focus on the years 1929-1935, marked by the implementation of statist policies and the First Five-Year Industrial Plan (FFYIP). The FFYIP represented a significant shift in Turkey's economic policy, focusing on state-led industrialization to address the challenges of the period. The thesis explores the debates on statism from the highest political elite to the small town of Bünyan, highlighting the impact of state factories on local resources and social dynamics. The case of the Sümerbank Kayseri Textile Factory illustrates the positive effects of state factories on regional development, but also the complexities in the use and sharing of local natural resources, as seen in Bünyan. The thesis studies social actors relevant to the statism debates and Kayseri Sümerbank Textile Factory in a hierarchical structure.
1980 sonrası Büyükada'da sermaye birikimi ve emek: Van-Ercişli göçmenler örneği
Focusing on the narratives of a migrant community from Van-Erciş in Büyükada who migrated to the island in the 1980s and since then suc-cessfully transitioned to self-employment, this thesis emphasizes the role of self-employment as a strategy to overcome labor market dis-crimination within migrant communities. It also assesses the influence of family dynamics on entrepreneurial activities. Drawing upon migrant self-employment literature, notably the concepts of 'necessity entre-preneurship' and 'embedded market approach', the thesis seeks to comprehend the entrepreneurial processes of Van-Erciş migrants. Four main areas of literature are utilized in this study: research on the Princes' Islands, studies on rural to urban migration since 1980, re-search on Kurdish labor, and studies on migrant self-employment. The fieldwork for this thesis included 21 in-depth, face-to-face interviews and participant observation conducted in Büyükada between April 2022 and January 2023. The objective is to enrich the literature by in-vestigating the ethnic context of working-class entrepreneurship in Turkey, particularly focusing on the transition from informal labor to entrepreneurship.
Between empowerment and disappointment: Women workers' struggle for unionization in 2020s Turkey
Tis thesis investigates the experiences of women workers attempting to unionize against poor working conditions, low wages, and humiliating treatment at the workplace in 2020s Turkey. It focuses on women's mobilization processes in two textile and two metal factories in Istanbul, Kocaeli, and Bursa between 2021 and 2023. Examining women's motivations for unionization, the challenges they face, their subjective transformations, and their relationships with co-workers, union officers and families during their main form of resistance, which is picketing in front of factories, this study provides a gendered analysis of women's mobilization and resistance. Employing feminist methodology, the analysis builds on fieldwork, which included in-depth interviews and participant observation with 16 women workers and 2 women union officers. Tis study engages with the literature on mobilization, empirical studies on women's labor activism in the Global South and Turkey, and studies on the impact of social movements. Te thesis firstly argues that the demand for dignity is crucial in the mobilization of women subjected to the gender pay gap and patriarchal pressures. Secondly, the thesis demonstrates that women experience empowerment through unionization and collective action, but the bureaucratic and patriarchal structure of the unions limits this empowerment. Hence, this thesis contributes to the literature on women's labor activism by exploring women's agency in the labor movement and their intertwined struggles against patriarchy and capitalism in the triangle of family, workplace, and union.
Dil, iktidar ve kimlik: Günümüz Türkiye'sinde iki dilli Kürtlerin deneyimleri
This thesis aims to examine the language ideologies encountered by Kurdish and Turkish bilingual university students in Turkey in their daily interactions within the framework of language and power dynamics. Although assumptions, thoughts, and beliefs about languages are attributed to linguistic realities, they are actually based on ideological foundations shaped by historical and political processes. This study investigates how accents and other linguistic features or the language itself are perceived by Turkish-speaking interlocutors through the experiences of students who started living in cities where Turkish is predominantly spoken to pursue higher education. The impacts of these experiences on the daily lives of Kurdish students and the role of language in identity construction are also discussed in relation to language ideologies and language and power relations. Findings from semi-structured interviews reveal that perceived discrimination and feelings of inadequacy related to language influence attitudes towards languages and identity negotiation processes.
The price of child care: Middle-class religious mothers navigating the ECEC field in 2020s Istanbul
This study examines the structure of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) field in Türkiye through a qualitative case study conducted in Istanbul. It is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with 50 women, including parents, teachers, and school managers, combined with participant observation in the field. It explores how middle-income, highly educated, and religious mothers navigate the complex and stratified ECEC landscape, negotiating limited economic resources while pursuing aspirations related to both their children's education and their own cultural tastes. Drawing on Bourdieu's field theory, this study critically analyzes the political and economic dynamics that structure the ECEC field and examines how economic, cultural, and social capital shape parental choices in interaction with institutional structures. Focusing on two key themes, social class and religious habitus, it shows that cultural capital, shaped by education and participation in the cultural field, produces divergent effects when intersecting with these themes. On the one hand, cultural capital contributes to the reproduction of social inequalities through middle-class maternal practices within the uneven ECEC structure, shaped by limited public provision and growing privatization. On the other hand, it reshapes pedagogical orientations within the diverse structure of religious habitus, facilitating transformation in educational practices and expectations.
The making of neoliberal subjectivity in Turkey: The case of coaching as a subfield of self-help industry
This thesis examines the processes of neoliberalization and the construction of neoliberal subjectivity in Turkey. Using both the Marxist approach, which sees neoliberalism as a class project and the Foucaldian approach, which analyzes it as governmentality, the thesis focuses on career coaching in the context of these two frameworks. The coaching profession, which is considered as a sub-field of the self-help industry, is a technique of power that has been effective in the normalization of ideological assumptions of neoliberalism and the restructuring of the hegemonic status of neoliberalism through the construction of neoliberal subjectivities. In this context, this thesis argues that coaching, career coaching in specific, is a technique of power that manufactures an employee subjectivity based on the principles of entrepreneurship and docility and, in this way, aims to adapt individuals to the neoliberal labor regime. It tries to prove this claim by analyzing semi-structured interviews conducted with coaches who specialized in career coaching and those who received coaching service.
The making of a makbul father: A socio-political exploration of heteronormative fatherhood in Turkey
This dissertation critically analyzes the notion of heteronormative father-hood within the context of nationalism. Drawing upon thirty-six formal, semi-structured, and tape-recorded interviews with lower-middle class men who identify themselves as Turkish-Sunni-Muslim and have children be-tween the ages of eighteen to forty, in six cities in the Marmara, Central Anatolia and the Black Sea Regions, it examines the relationship between makbul citizenship and the construction and experiences of heteronormative fatherhood. For the interviewees, the social meaning of fatherhood goes beyond having children. It is the ability to shoulder financial responsibilities and differentiate makbul from non-makbul on behalf of their dependents, namely, their spouses, siblings, and children. Men ground their fatherly authority over their dependents on some of their qualities, such as being nationalistic and religious, that enable them to be included in formal and informal networks of solidarity. However, the difficulties they endured as a child motivated them to prevent their children from being socially and economically vulnerable in life as they were. Thus, they have created an environment for their children to dare to be demanding from their family in many senses. They invented new mild methods to sustain fatherly authority. But they also complain about being unappreciated. In this sense, they are fathers in-between.
One hundred years of development in Turkey with intangible capital
This thesis studies the role of intangible capital in the development of Tur-key during the last century. Intangible capital is the accumulation of human and institutional capi-tal. It is a new terminology in economics introduced by the World Bank for the research on sustainability to understand country-specific structural problems. The thesis argues that economic output is highly correlated with the historical accumulation of intangible factors. Moreover, stock of tangi-ble physical capital develops with the mutual interaction of intangible capi-tal, thus intangible capital is the root cause of development. The introduc-tion of the concept of "brand value of a country" corresponding to the intangible capital uses the analogy in microeconomics and opens a new understanding for the wealth of a nation. The empirical historical research in this respect highlights that with the enthusiasm of the founding fathers the brand value of Turkey grew fastest after 1930s until mid-century. Moreover, the accumulated intangible capi-tal supported the transition from rural to urban society. However, the study features that the growth of intangible capital suffered several severe set-backs every decade since 1960 and Turkey did not establish a sustainable institutional environment, nor a consistent human capital development pro-gram since mid of last century. The analysis based on the latest trend of all intangible factors, including the trend of human development and rule of law indicators, consequently the intangible capital concludes that the cur-rent development level of Turkey cannot be sustained unless the existing structure is reformed radically.
Family and gender in millennials' novels in Turkey: 2006-2020
This new historicist analysis aims to analyze the mutual interactions be-tween family and gender-related themes of Turkish millennials' novels and the family and gender politics of the 2000s and 2010s, in which millennials' novels were written. In this context, 26 millennials' novels were analyzed and interpreted through a critical reading. Findings suggested that millennials' novels contradict the traditional, patriarchal, and conservative family norms that have been supported and encouraged by the governments in Turkey in the last two decades. Millennials' novels are card-carrying anti-family novels. However, they do not show a similar pattern in terms of gender. In other words, millennials' novels are in concert with the sexist, misogynist, and anti-woman discourse that dominated the epoch in which millennials' novels were written. The main reason for this situation is that millennials' novels are fictional texts that want to put right or radically change Turkish society and Turkey by creating vigilantes. A family and its responsibilities are obstacles for a vigilante character. On the other hand, vigilantes believe they could find the power they need to achieve their almost impossible goals in patriarchy, masculinity, and toxic masculinity. Therefore, millennials' novels have reproduced the sexist politics that dominated the epoch in which they were written.
Behind the gallows: Capital punishment, law, and legislative performance in Turkey (1926-1990)
This dissertation examines how the death penalty's legal framework and the practice of deciding on executions operated within Turkey's parliamentary era. The legislature, vested with broad power ranging from enacting capital laws to granting amnesty, played a central role in the operation of the death penalty while these laws were in effect. Analysis of parliamentary processes reveals that the death penalty functions as a distraction beyond the criminal and legal boundaries. Actors partly responsible for shaping, tolerating, or ignoring the normative order enabling crime, or for the legal inertia that fails to prevent it, deflect attention by emphasizing brutal death penalty de-bates, thus concealing or shifting their responsibility. Three notable parliamentary practices emerged. First, interpretations of death penalty legislation created a myth of monsters deserving death, which over-individualizes crime and deflects responsibility onto others. Second, the legislature acted in si-lence, presenting itself not as a decisive authority but as a mere cog in a ma-chine. Indeed, 80.6% of individual death sentences were processed without parliamentary debate, and for thirty-five years, none were placed on the agenda. Political elites, neither accepting nor rejecting executions, strategically preserve the death penalty laws by leveraging its capacity to absorb every debate into its moral sphere. Third, the death penalty's legal existence hid individual responsibility by portraying victim as abstract entity – the state or nation. It obscured how and why those positioned at the fringes or in opposition to the socio-political order were placed there in the first place, by designating them as the other.
Hijyenin politikası: Geç Osmanlı İstanbulu'nda halk sağlığı ve kentsel dönüşüm
Bu tez, geç dönem Osmanlı İstanbulu'nda hijyen, kentsel dönüşüm ve yönetişim arasındaki etkileşimi inceleyerek sağlık, çevre ve altyapının kesişimine ışık tutmayı amaçlar. Kir, hastalık ve temizlik kavramlarının İstanbul'un değişen kentsel dokusu, altyapısı ve kent reformlarını nasıl şekillendirdiğini ve bunlar tarafından nasıl şekillendirildiğini araştırır. Gıda, su, kanalizasyon ve defin uygulamaları olmak üzere dört temel unsura odaklanan araştırma, Osmanlı Devleti'nin deneyimlediği halk sağlığı krizlerinin kentsel mekânları hijyenik bir mercekle yeniden kurgulamada nasıl araçsallaştırıldığını ve bu sürecin toplumsal ilişkilere nasıl eklemlendiğni sorgular. Osmanlı arşiv belgelerine, tıbbi risalelere, ölüm ve sağlık istatistiklerine dayanan çalışma, İstanbul'un kendine özgü coğrafyası ve sosyo-politik dinamikleriyle yerelleştirilen küresel hijyen söylemleri ile gündelik gerçeklikler arasındaki etkileşimi araştırır. Kentsel çevre tarihi ve hastalıkların sosyal tarihi yaklaşımlarını bütünleştiren tez, konvansiyonel devlet merkezli yaklaşımların ötesine geçerek, çeşitli aktörlerin halk sağlığı politikalarını müzakere etmedeki failliğini vurgular. Araştırma, İstanbul'u "hijyenik bir kente" dönüştürme çabasının ne doğrusal ne de tekdüze olduğunu; direniş, adaptasyon ve çekişmelerle şekillenen bir süreç olduğunu öne sürer. Çalışma, çevre ve kent incelemeleri arasında köprü kurarak Osmanlı tarih yazımına katkıda bulunmayı ve halk sağlığı politikalarının İmparatorluğun son yüzyılında kentsel yaşam, yönetişim ve yapılı çevre arasındaki ilişkiye nasıl aracılık ettiğine dair yeni içgörüler sunar.
1970'lerde Türkiye'de Kürtler ve sol: Bir "gezgin teori" olarak emperyalizm
This thesis explores the intellectual and political framework of Rizgari, a socialist journal collective active in Turkey during the 1970s. Positioned at the intersection of the Kurdish political movement and the socialist tradition, Rizgari developed a distinctive conceptual approach shaped by both local dynamics and global theoretical debates. The study focuses in particular on the group's interpretation of sub-imperialism, a concept introduced by Ruy Mauro Marini. Rather than adopting it directly, Rizgari adapted this concept to analyze Turkey's regional role and its relationship with Western powers. In parallel, the group proposed a critical perspective on the administrative, cultural, and economic practices implemented in Kurdish-populated areas, which they viewed as mechanisms of control and integration. The thesis uses Edward Said's notion of "traveling theory" to trace how certain theoretical tools are reshaped through different historical and political contexts. By analyzing selected publications of Rizgari, the study aims to contribute to the understanding of how global leftist and anti-systemic ideas were received, reinterpreted, and localized by political actors operating in Turkey during a transformative decade.