Güldem Baykal Büyüksaraç

This collection seeks to expand the limits of current debates about urban com-moning practices that imply a radical will to establish collaborative and solidarity networks based on anti-capitalist principles of economics, ecology and ethics. The chapters in this volume draw on case studies in a diversity of urban contexts , ranging from Detroit, USA to Kyrenia, Cyprus-on urban gardening and land stewardship, collaborative housing experiments, alternative food networks , claims to urban leisure space, migrants' appropriation of urban space and workers' cooperatives/collectives. The analysis pursued by the eleven chapters opens new fields of research in front of us: the entanglements of racial capitalism with enclosures and of black geographies with the commons, the critical history of settler colonialism and indigenous commons, law as a force of enclosure and as a strategy of commoning, housing commons from the urban-scale perspective, solidarity economies as labour commons, territoriality in the urban commons, the non-territoriality of mobile commons, the new materialist and post-humanist critique of the commons debate and feminist ethics of care.

This article deals with the impacts of neoliberalization on site management in Turkey. It examines the relationship between conservation on the one hand, and the privatization and commercialization of nature, on the other. It discusses how the official understanding of conservation in Turkey has shaped the national parks regime, taking into consideration the governmental and ideological continuities as much as the ongoing neoliberal transformation. Focusing on the Köprülü Canyon National Park (KCMP) case, it seeks to understand how the (partially transformed) understanding of conservation has structured the interaction between the state and the forest villagers. Presenting examples of the marketization of Köprüçay waters, it explores the major implications of a paternal environmental protectionism that pursues "conservation-usage balance" for preserved areas like national parks.

This article discusses the materiality and spatiality of social life, problematizing the human-environment relationship in a conservation area in Turkey, based on research findings regarding the Köprülü Kanyon National Park. Rather than the ecological, cultural and economic values of the park, the discussion is focused on things that the hegemonic conservation perspective has marginalized and made invisible, the ordinary things of everyday life, particularly the material forms that have been used and damaged, and sometimes worn-out without having been used. This material world, in which the dwelling and subsistence practices of the local community are embodied, enables us to conceptualize a heritage landscape as an assemblage of intertwined social practices and temporalities, and also renders the other stories of the region audible. The material context reveals the textual diversity of a landscape, in other words, the potential of the landscape to generate different memories, different meanings, and the symbolic conflicts it contains, by pointing to the different stories that the space harbours.

Keywords: Köprülü Kanyon National Park, Selge, material world, dwelling, landscape, conservation

Bu makale, antropolojik bilgi üretim süreçlerinde uygulama meselesini ele alıyor. Uzunca bir süre devlet ve piyasa perspektifleriyle sınırlı olduğu izlenimi veren uygulamalı antropoloji, sistemik sorunlara çözüm arayan değişim odaklı bir disiplin pratiğine dönüşme potansiyeline sahiptir. Makale, genel olarak bu dönüşümün güncel akademik koşullarına odaklanırken, ilk kısımda, erken dönem uygulamalı antropoloji deneyimleri ve bu deneyimler üzerine yürütülen eleştirel tartışmalara göz atmaktadır. Diğer kısımlarda, kültürel eleştiri, aktivist antropoloji ve eylem araştırmaları arasındaki kuramsal ve metodolojik alışveriş ele alınıyor. Tartışmada, ayrıca, topluluk tabanlı, katılımcı yaklaşımlara öncelik veren uygulamalı araştırmacılığın olanakları ve sınırlılıkları, bazı önemli metodolojik ve etik soru(n)lar üzerinden, değerlendiriliyor.

A growing literature acknowledges the necessity of studying minority politics as a dynamic process taking place within a complex web of relations that cut across state boundaries. In an effort to contribute to this approach, I examine here the possibilities and limits of minority agency through the case of Iraqi Turkmen, accentuating the relational character of minority movements. Thinking with Rogers Brubaker (1996), I historicize the Turkmen’s relationship to Iraq, the state in which they reside as a marginalized “national minority,” and to Turkey, which Turkmen usually view as their mother country. I thereby problematize the putative kinship ties between the Iraqi Turkmen and ethnic Turks in Turkey in the context of “kin-state” politics, as the latter implies a political stance that represents a state as a protector and sponsor of “ethnic co-nationals” abroad. I focus on the complicated and increasingly conflictual relations of Turkey and the Turkmen, who are caught up in a double bind between engaging in Iraqi politics independently of the Turkish government and enjoying its support at the risk of losing their voices. Combining historical methods with ethnographic research, I ask how ethnic elites make practical sense of their minority status. In doing so, I discuss the political dynamics and consequences of self-essentialism in the Turkmen case, where minority activism has been conditioned by Turkish interventionism and Turkish nationalism, as much as by the exclusionary politics of Iraqi governments. While “national minority” could be empowering as an officially imposed and internationally sanctioned category with certain civic and political rights attached to it, for the Turkmen elites it has mainly implied disempowerment. This has at times swayed the Turkmen toward Turkish irredentism. However, as demonstrated in the article, the desire for Turkish tutelage is giving way to a more pragmatic understanding of kin-state politics.

“Conquering Istanbul: The Controversy over the Taksim Mosque Project.” Anthropology in Action. Vol 11, No2/3 2004 (Anthropological Index, Abstracts in Anthropology, IBR, IBZ, MLA International Bibliography, MLA Directory of Periodicals, Sociological Abstracts).

Büyüksaraç, Güldem Baykal. 2015. “Unheard voices: State-making and popular participation in post-Ottoman Iraq.” Ethnic and Racial Studies (Special Issue: Minority Politics in the Middle East and North Africa: the Prospects for Transformative Change, guest edited by Will Kymlicka and Eva Pfoestl), Vol 38, Issue 14: 2551-2568. DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2015.1061133

Özet
Bu bölüm, antik Selge kalıntılarının yanı başında nesiller boyu sürüp giden bir toplumsal hayatı atıl, atık, estetik değer taşımayan, sıradan şeyler üzerinden betimliyor. Nesnenin anlatıcı özne olarak alımlandığı yorumsayıcı bir yaklaşım benimseyerek, maddi kültürün toplumsal bellekle ilişkisini anlamaya çalışıyor. Materyal bağlamın farklı anlamlar ve farklı bellekler üretme gücüne, dolayısıyla söz konusu peyzajın metinsel çeşitliliğine işaret ediyor.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Maddesellik, yerleşme, peyzaj, bellek, Selge

Abstract
Through idle, waste, and ordinary things that do not have aesthetic value, this section depicts a social life that goes on for generations next to the ancient Selge ruins. By adopting an interpretative approach where object is considered as the narrating subject, it seeks to understand the relevance of material culture to social memory. It reveals the potential of the material context to produce different meanings and different memories, which in turn indicates the textual diversity of the landscape in question.
Keywords: Materiality, dwelling, landscape, memory, Selge

This course will revolve around the state's socio-spatial interventions, taking the form of planning, regulation, and control. Our primary objective is to gain an understanding of the contemporary contradictions inherent in modern governance, particularly in the context of attempts to shape and transform the environment and the political mobilizations triggered by these attempts. Through historical and current analyses from both global and Turkish perspectives, we will explore the intricate dynamics of state-capital-society interactions and frictions (Tsing 2011) within the frontiers of (neoliberal) developmentalism and the extractive economies. Course Requirements and Grading The course will be conducted as a seminar, requiring informed class discussions. Attendance at all class meetings and active participation in discussions are mandatory. The assessment will consist of one midterm exam (40%) and one final exam (60%). Additionally, students will have the opportunity to earn extra credit (up to 20 points added to their final exam grade) by volunteering to make reading presentations and lead class discussions.

Bu seminer dersinde, 1970'lerden bu yana sosyal bilimlerde yürütülen mekan, yer ve peyzaj tartışmalarına, daha çok coğrafya ve antropoloji yazınlarına odaklanarak, göz atacağız. Ders materyali, iki temel amaç gözeterek hazırlandı. Birincisi, bu üç kategorinin ontolojisi ve epistemolojisine kafa yormak: Mekan, yer ve peyzaj nedir? Bu kavramları hangi veçheleriyle tanır ve biliriz? Sosyal bilimlere damgasını vurmuş mekan/yer/peyzaj kuramları nelerdir? Dersin ikinci amacı bu kavramları belli temalar üzerinden irdelemek. Bu temalarla, (1) mekan/yer/peyzajın toplumsal, politik ve kültürel üretimini ele alacağız; (2) tartışmayı iktidar ve kimlik sorularıyla derinleştireceğiz; (3) küreselleşme ve geç kapitalizmin mekana yansımalarına bakacağız; (4) insan deneyimini mekansal ve materyal bağlamı içinde değerlendireceğiz.

Modern Devlet Antropolojisi, bu dönem dört modül halinde işlenecek. Birinci modülde, siyasal antropoloji ve devlet olgusunun genel olarak disiplinde yer edinme serüveni üzerine okumalar yapacağız. İkinci modülde, ilkinde bahsi geçen bazı düşünürler üzerinden devlet fikrinin felsefi kökenlerine ineceğiz. Yaşamın ve sahip olduklarının güvence altına alınması talebindeki "kırılgan" bireyin bu güvenceyi sağlayacak bir devlet arayışı varsayımına ve bu varsayımdan hareket eden "refah devleti" kavramına kafa yoracağız. Üçüncü modül ise, devlet yönetimi ile öz-yönetim tekniklerinin yapısal bütünleşikliği olarak tarif edebileceğimiz "(biyo-politik) yönetimsellik" (Foucault) terimi üzerinden, (geç-)kapitalist çağın egemen yönetim biçimlerini kavratmayı amaçlıyor. Dördüncü modülde, bir öncekinde tanımladığımız modern iktidar yapısı bağlamında-neoliberalleşmeyle vahimleşen-toplumsal güvencesizlik, kırılganlık ve kırılganlaşma meselelerini tartışacağız. Bu tartışma aynı zamanda ikinci modülde ele aldığımız liberal politik kuramı güncel koşullarda eleştirme olanağı sunacak.

Applied anthropology has a long controversial history, usually traced back to the colonialist and imperialist structures of power and domination (Asad 1973, Gough 1968, Hymes 1974). On the other hand, over the past two decades, there has been increased interest in community-engaged research in academia, as evidenced in the emergence of new sub-disciplines such as public archaeology, indigenous geography, or activist sociology. This recent trend marks a new moment of self-reflexivity in the history of social sciences and humanities, which can be taken as an occasion to consider the potentials and limitations of applied anthropology in the neoliberal age. This course has been planned to reflect on 'anthropological debt': the obligation of 'giving back' to the communities we intrude into for research purposes. Is it possible to reconcile ethnographic research with advocacy and action without reproducing (and creating new forms of) asymmetries between the researcher and the researched? We have three main objectives in this course: overviewing the disciplinary history and critiques of applied anthropology, questioning its effectiveness in engaging with the current social reality, and exploring the ethico-political issues involved in this sub-discipline.

Heritage care has turned into a burden for modern polities as the consequence of a global conservation regime that is largely based on a Western ethos. As urging each and every nation-state to take responsibility for protecting the “world’s cultural and natural heritage,” the international conventions often fail to address the idiosyncrasies of individual cases and disregard the needs of those whose lives are directly affected by decisions taken regarding this heritage. Once categorized as “belonging to humanity in its totality,” heritage becomes the purview of experts at the expense of local perspectives, who will in turn serve the national and international conservation institutions in “landscaping” heritage sites. A landscape conceptualized and arranged as “world heritage” reflects an outsider’s view that obscures the social existence within that landscape. However, as Denis Cosgrove has argued, “landscape” is an ambiguous term in a quite insightful way. Largely informed by relevant debates in geography, archaeology and heritage studies, this paper is engaged with the tension between the two implications of “landscape,” one as an ideological construct (e.g. sites listed as world heritage or as national heritage assets) and the other as an experiential domain fashioned by human and non-human agencies. In my presentation, I will focus on the Köprülü Canyon National Park in southwest Turkey to explore this tension and its manifestations in the context of heritage care and governance. In my larger project I examine how a range of actors differentially engage in the ideological, material, and experiential production of the cultural and natural landscapes. Here I will primarily examine the state policies and practices aiming to establish land control in archeological and natural heritage sites in Turkey, and analyze the resident communities’ responses to these interventions, their experiential relationships with their surroundings and practical struggles around heritage conservation and management activities.

Keywords: heritage landscape, global conservation regime, heritage conservation, heritage management, national park, land control

Applied anthropology has a long controversial history, usually traced back to the colonialist and imperialist structures of power and domination (Asad 1973, Gough 1968, Hymes 1974). Over the past two decades, however, there has been increased interest in community-engaged research in academia, as evidenced in the emergence of such sub-disciplines as public archaeology, indigenous geography, or activist sociology. This recent trend marks a new moment of self-reflexivity in academic thought and practice. It is only timely that we consider the potentials of applied anthropology in a more sophisticated form. In this paper, I would like to dwell on what I call ‘anthropological debt’:  the obligation of ‘giving back’ to the communities we intrude into and desire to mingle with as we conduct our research. My primary concern is whether we can carry out anthropology as a discipline with transformative, if not revolutionary, potential. How is it possible to reconcile research with advocacy and action, without reproducing (and creating new forms of) asymmetries between the researcher and the researched? With this question in mind, I will discuss the legitimacy and effectiveness of applied anthropology in engaging with the current social reality, by accentuating the ethico-political issues involved in this sub-discipline and reflecting on probable solutions.

Workshop at The George Washington University

The Minority Experience in the Middle East:
New Anthropological Perspectives, Washington, DC, 24-25 May 2012



Thursday May 24th, 1:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Friday May 25th, 9:00 am - 3:00 pm
Institute for Middle East Studies
Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University
Washington, DC


CALL FOR PAPERS


Today’s anthropology calls for adopting a more consciously critical stance on the Middle East that would be more heedful to the risk and dangers of essentialism. As Jane I. Guyer (2004: 517) has recently noted, “indexing everything to Arab culture and Muslim religion leaves out of the equation ‘hybrid identities, diasporic existences, minorities, and marginal communities’” (Navaro-Yashin 2002: 74). Her caution bears significant politico-ethical implications about the minority peoples under question. A major purpose of this workshop is to make a contribution to the development of our scholarly research and analytical skills for studying diverse human experiences of modernity in the Middle East.

A common goal, then, is theoretical engagement with the concept of “minority.” The participants are encouraged to view “minority” as a “product of particular ideological, social, political and economic processes” (Cowan 2001: 156), rather than as a self-evident entity or a legally defined social status that describes the timeless standing of a group in the margins of a population. This entails a careful study of “minoritization,” a process that emerges at the intersection of totalizing and particularizing effects of the nation-state. A source of inspiration for this project is a recent collaborative work edited by Veena Das and Deborah Poole, Anthropology in the Margins of the State (2004). “The margins of the state,” as Das and Poole describe, is a contested socio-political site for “people considered insufficiently socialized into the law,” where they are “managed” and “pacified” through technologies of power ensuring both consent and coercion. In this light of thinking, our questions are pertinent to all marginal communities, coded as foundational elements of a ‘nation’, and yet at the same time marked as racially and culturally different from the national identity. However, this is not to portray minorities as victims of structural violence in a reductionist manner. On the contrary, we will be equally attentive to ways in which marginalized peoples negotiate with the sovereign power and the mainstream society over their identities, rights, and living conditions. Hence, we will take up various examples of such negotiations posing at times serious challenges to the hegemonic cultural, legal, and economic grammars of the Middle Eastern states.

The workshop seeks contributions based on recent ethnographies and ethnohistorical research, with insightful findings that could broaden the scope of our anthropological thinking on the complexities of the social experience of modernity in Middle Eastern societies. Conceptual papers engaged in comparative analysis to reveal the peculiarities of minority experiences in the region are also welcome. Possible questions for presentations might include:

• How can we study the processes of marginalization and minoritization in the Middle East as they are closely linked to the totalizing/ particularizing effects of the nation-state? How is the minority status contested between state and social actors?
• How do minorities negotiate their identities, rights, and economic conditions? Which modes of claim-making collective subjectivities emerge in various contexts? What are the strategies of survival for different marginal groups and individuals, who either consider themselves as (part of) a minority, or conversely deny the status of being ‘minor’?
• What is the significance of rights language for the marginalized communities of the Middle East (for a similar question addressing women’s subordination and feminist movements, see Brown 2000)?
• How do minorities make sense of the ‘national history’ of their country? As they imagine and negotiate their future, how do they seek to reconstruct the past with their own historical accounts ridden with narratives of violence and suffering?
• What are the dynamics of strategic essentialism in the Middle East? Is it possible to reconcile the claims of cultural particularity (e.g. ethnic, linguistic, religious/sectarian differences) with the imperative of universal human rights?
• Which ways and agents of representative politics are available to Middle Eastern minorities?
• How can we take the class dimension into our account when we study the minority politics of recognition in the Middle East?
• How can we critically approach minority movements claiming authenticity and purity at the expense of intra-communal differences?

Please send a 300-400 word paper proposal, along with a bio or curriculum vitae by 7 March 2012 to the workshop organizer, Guldem Baykal Buyuksarac (gbb@gwu.edu). Selected participants will be notified by 15 March 2012 and required to submit their papers by 15 May 2012. Full manuscripts will be included in an edited book proposal following the workshop.

Participants’ travel and accommodation (one-night’s stay in DC) expenses will be covered. Further details will be sent out in April 2012.

I explore the nature of the particular nation state form that came into being in Iraq during the British Mandate, and in particular its impact on minorities. The Mandate government, and the broader international legal framework, structured state–minority relations in post-Ottoman Iraq in ways that continue to shape Iraqi politics. While sociocultural differences in Iraqi society were given constitutional recognition, this did not lead to the effective protection of minority rights, primarily because the principle of popular participation was not respected. The Mandate legacy in Iraq has been long-lasting, as the mistakes of the past have been reproduced by postcolonial regimes, and thus the state–minority relationship has been locked in a loop of exclusionary politics and securitization.

In this dissertation, I examine the question of politicized ethnicity in a transnational context where nationalism is put into service as a redemptive ideology to heal personal and collective wounds of historical traumas and marginalization. I try to understand how ethno-nationalism is ...