Ethnic identity in the transition of the nation-state in Turkey: case of Sakarya province

What is the way to keep the nation-states, which contain many different ethno-cultural and religious groups, in peace with democratic practices? This question has become the most important question of the period in which social sciences, especially the field of sociology and politics, became increasingly important in terms of spreading mass communication tools, increasing global migration, human rights and democracy, and post-colonial studies after colonialism. It is argued that, on the basis of these social, political and technological developments; these different ethnic-cultural groups living in homogeneous nation-states with a multi-ethnic and multinational social structure should be considered to interconnect their own cultural heritage and religious needs interests with their historical heritage and interests in the public sphere. Today, the basic ideas that affirm these arguments are called cultural pluralism or liberal multiculturalism, communitarian multiculturalism. It is seen that the policies that emerged and applied especially in Western societies, are also tried to be adapted to Turkey and the applications towards these policies are developed. In this study, it has been determined how the issue of liberal multiculturalism in Turkey, through the epistemological assumptions presented by post-colonial approaches and the methodological guidance of "dialectical unity principle", actually experienced and interpreted the macro and abstract definitions of nation-state, national identity and ethnicity. For this purpose, the National Unity Perception Scale (NUPS), which contains statements about the main topics and applications, was developed within the context of multicultural identity politics in Turkey. In this sense, it can be said that study has made an important contribution to the literature. At the same time, in order to contribute to the understanding of the social structure of Turkey's nation-state structure, the Social Distance Scale (SDS) has been exploited in analysing the levels of social distances among different ethno-cultural groups, and National Identity Scale (NIS) has been exploited in analysing the belonging ties of different ethno-cultural groups which they interact with Turkish national identity. The findings of the study show that apart from the main topics presented by the liberal multiculturalism debates, the basic elements that change traditional institutional and social reference topics in Turkey need to be scrutinized. Therefore, the question of "what kind of identity politics should be developed in order to enable the ideal of unity in difference to be realized in a peaceful and democratic process" has been discussed in response to liberal multiculturalism policies in Turkey. In this context, ontological and epistemological assumptions of a new identity politics for Turkey have been based on an argument that "rope culture" (Özensel, 2013) term is taken as a reference point and that Turkey should discuss the national identity which will unveil Turkey'shidden habitus. Keywords: Multiculturalism, Rope culture, Nation-state, National identity, Post-colonial multiculturalism.