Masculinities, Conservatism and power relations in contemporary Turkey
Panel 086, 2016 Annual Meeting
On Friday, November 18 at 3:45 pm
Panel Description
This panel mainly aims to analyze masculinities and shifting gendered power relations in contemporary Turkish social and political life shaped by allegedly rising conservatism. In this regard, this panel questions masculinized arrangements and the embeddedness of power within broader gendered processes of interaction, networking, interpersonal relationships and institutions in Turkish society. Taking gender as a constantly shifting product of society constructing asymmetrical and hierarchical relations enables researchers to analyze issues within a whole network of the political, social and cultural terrains. In this framework, as the concept of masculinities is not a generic role set; rather it is below, above or in-between structures, it provides a rich ground for different questions from varying disciplines. (1) How are power relations are constructed among men in Turkish society? ; (2) What is the role of the broader political background?; (3) How are the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion of gendered identities are negotiated within a given social and historical context?. These questions help to investigate the gendered ways in which power works in the construction of conservative masculinities vis-a-vis hegemonic masculinities. Hence, this panel addresses these issues with a particular attention to the intersections of masculinities, power, conservatism, public policing, local entrepreneurial fraternities and bonding practices among them. Main pathways, in general, local patterns of masculinities, in particular will be revealed by the data offered by qualitative research methods. The data offered by the set of fieldworks conducted in different cities from different geographical regions will provide significant footprints to follow. The discussions in this panel will also provide theoretical and methodological insights for the newly emerging field of men and masculinities in Turkey. Producing knowledge on masculinities in Turkey through an in-depth inquiry has the potential to open doors for new researches varying from political science, sociology, and anthropology.
This paper is a part of ongoing research funded by TUBITAK titled: New Capital and Conservatism: Anatolian Tigers from the perspective of Sociology of everyday life. In particular this paper is an attempt to evaluate the existing data from the following perspective: What is the scope and extent of being conservative with reference to new capital holders in Turkey? How do the social networks influence the construction of masculinity among conservative bourgeoisie? This research investigates the social and political values, attitudes and lifestyles of conservative entrepreneurs otherwise called “Anatolian Tigers” from urban centers of Turkey such as Konya Gaziantep and Kayseri. I am interested in exploring how these businessmen present themselves in the public sphere, their power, aspirations, projection of masculinity, their position vis-à-vis other businessman and their perception of their place in the general hierarchy prevalent in the social and political life they lead. In this regard I attempt to grasp how they connect themselves with conservative politics and power –holders that surround them. How they position themselves with reference to conservatism? What is their vision of conservative society and politics? These are the basic questions that guide my research. In this research I rely on information gathered from in-depth interviews with businessman and women conducted in 2015 and 2016.
This paper analyzes masculinities and entrepreneurship in Turkey through an in-depth inquiry of the holders of 'new capital', so-called 'Anatolian Tigers', in contemporary Turkey. Based on the findings of a research funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), this work questions businessmen’s relations with other men, especially with their masters and/or fathers, and their negotiations of power. The research project, entitled New Capital and Conservatism: Anatolian Tigers from the Perspective of Sociology of Everyday Life, mainly aims to examine the gendered practices of the rising social class of entrepreneurs from different urban centres in Turkey. In line with this research’s focus on the patterns of masculinities, this specific paper concentrates on the hierarchical masculinized relations among businessmen. As masculine identities have been constantly constructed within structured relations of power, masculinist bargains are actively created and fostered through processes of inculcating common values inherited by their masters and/or fathers. Such process also calls for the negotiation of the hegemonic masculine entrepreneurial identity and the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. In this framework, this research does not only aim to juxtapose the defining characteristics of entrepreneurs’ masculinities but also how they position themselves vis a vis other men is significant. Moreover, while local and national markets have positioned them the assumed identity of ‘Tiger’ as necessarily powerful, aggressive, and assertive; their own positioning within the whole network of practices, meanings and discourses is also important to be discussed. In this line, this work hints an analysis uncovering the patterns of hegemonic masculine entrepreneurial identities in a social and political context marked by increasing conservatism fueled by neoliberal policies .
In this paper, I explore an arena in which masculinity is performed and presented by the police in its relation to the wider public in Turkey. I analyze how the Turkish National Police constructs and embodies shifting forms of masculinity. Drawing from a fieldwork conducted in three cities in Turkey and 35 in-depth interviews, I explore the shifting forms of police masculinities in Turkey in three distinct phases: a) policing prior to 2000s, which I call “macho policing,” b) the new policing between 2000-2013, which is often called “community policing,” and c) the protest policing, which I call “militarized policing.” The paper asks in what ways and under what conditions masculinities and policing reproduce each other? How are masculinities of the police formed in relation to ongoing political transformations? This paper seeks to contribute to debates on the gendered analysis of the state and the ethnographic state literature by exploring the ways in which masculinities and statehood through police practice and discourse reproduce each other, and the ways in which masculine power and state power are entwined. The analysis suggests that the normative anti-state/anti-police approach predominant in the ethnographies of the state literature should be approached with caution. The diversity of opinions among the police with regard to issues of police brutality at protest sites, and alternative understandings of policing as well as multiple masculinities displayed at different police units demonstrate that one should not see the police as a monolithic entity and an immediate embodiment of the state.
Keywords: policing; masculinities; political transformation; militarized policing; macho policing; Turkey
