The field of cultural production and it's relition with religion in Turkey: 1923-1980

This study aims to examine the relationship between the field of cultural production that is shaped by symbolic relational networks around the artists and art products, and the religion from the foundation of the Republic of Turkey to 1980 from the perspective of historical sociology. The modernisation and the Westernisation process that was followed after the proclamation of republic have reshaped the old relations between the religion and the state. Consequently, a new cultural environment was built by the top-down culture policies that aim to modernise the Turkish society. Due to the fact that this policy was considered essential part of modernisation, it has caused discussion around the dualities between culture/civilisation, art for art's sake/art for society, modern art/traditional art, universality/locality. The aim of this study is to examine, what kind of relation has emerged after the domination of the Western arts in the field and religion and tradition was considered against the modernisation. The study is divided into three main sections. The first was to build the field of cultural production which was buried under the superficial relations in the social space, as a scientific research object. In this point, it is studied how the filed has emerged in the new concept after the Republic of Turkey has broken the ties with former state tradition and emerged as a modern nation state. Next, the independency of the field from the state during the multi-party era and the formation of its own structure and doxa were studied. In the last part of the work, the multifaceted complex relations between the religion and the cultural field was studied. While examining these processes, it is possible to say that, the Turkish-Islamic arts and religious topics were excluded from the field. In addition to this, it is found that the field was standing at a distance away from the religion and the representation of religious/conservative artists were weak. This study has aimed to be interdisciplinary work by studying unique features of Turkish social relations that were emerged from cultural production processes and the relations between the cultural field and the religion. Another goal of the study was contributing the filed by developing a new perspective on the relation between the cultural field and the religion.