The development of social anthropology in Turkey and Bozkurt Güvenç's anthropological approach

Social anthropology is institutionalized in the nineteenth century, together with the human social sciences, to recognize and place savage, remote, and other oral societies in the modern world that is being established. French ethnology sought to discover the universal characteristics of man, while cultural evolutionists placed unwritten societies on the first rung of the developmental line and provided evidence for the superior existence of the modern world, American anthropologists emphasized the incomparability of different cultures, and founding figures of British social anthropology, such as Malinowski, served to point out the functional dimensions of cultures on the one hand, and on the other hand, illuminate so those colonial governments could govern more equitably. Social anthropology lost the privilege of being used by only Westerns in the nineteenth century. Social anthropology was started to imported in the era of the late Ottoman Empire. The attempt of imported was a process and the improvements about anthropology in the West were followed. Social anthropology, including the work of Bozkurt Güvenç, served as a useful tool needed to reach the modern world, which was lagging behind from its arrival in Turkey until the 2000s. The aim of this thesis is to explain the development process of social anthropology in Turkey and to position Bozkurt Güvenç, who played an important role in the promotion and institutionalization of social anthropology in Turkey, in this historical process. Therefore, in this thesis, while examining Bozkurt Güvenç's anthropological approach, how a discipline that emerged in a certain time-space transformed according to political and economic conditions and intellectual needs in another time-space was also examined. In the first part, the adventure of social anthropology in Turkey from the Late Ottoman Empire to the 1970s was explained. In the second part, Bozkurt Güvenç's studies, both his share of anthropological concerns and his new theoretical attitude are conveyed in integrity. In the third part, Bozkurt Güvenç's unique position in the historical process was stated with a comparative method and the effects he left behind and the works of his disciples were evaluated.