Gender, Ethnicity and the Nation-State: Anatolia and Its Neighboring Regions
May 21-24, 2009
Istanbul
We are pleased to announce our second workshop in memory of Hrant Dink. The theme of this year's workshop is "Gender, Ethnicity and the Nation-State: Anatolia and Its Neighboring Regions," focusing on the moments of transformation in gender relations and ethnic identity during both the construction of nation-states and their various transformation( s) throughout the 20th century.
Gender and ethnicity have been key categories of differentiation and conflict in nationalisms and nation-states, interacting with each other in multiple ways. Although nationalisms and nation-states typically claim equality as their basic organizing principle, the past century is marked by tensions in definitions and practices of gender and ethnicity. These tensions have taken violent forms during times of war and ethnic conflict, and have undergone transformations in response to processes of state-building, breakdown of states, socialism and postsocialism, forced or voluntary migrations within and across nation-states, democratization, and
the proliferation of social movements incuding feminist, LGBTT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual and Transgender) , and religious movements. Towards the end of the 20th century, globalization has triggered the crisis of the nation-state and its discourses, and the increasing prominence of supranational and subnational political processes have generated new conceptualizations of gender and ethnicity.
The goal of this year's workshop is to shed light on and problematize the multiple ways in which constructions and transformations of gender and ethnicity in and beyond nation-states have shaped Anatolia and its neighboring regions in the 20th century. Papers that examine contemporary transformations along the lines of gender and ethnicity are particularly welcome. Yet we are also interested in rethinking the transformation from empire to nation-state earlier in the century.
The turn of the 20th century was marked by radical changes in men's and women's lives in the Ottoman Empire. Established understandings of masculinity and femininity were challenged and redefined at the same time as ethnicity gained ground as an organizing political principle. The histories of this period have been dominated by Orientalist and nationalist scholarship. To this day, for instance, "Ottoman history" is often assumed to refer to "Turkish-Muslim" history and, in Turkey, statements that depict "the first novel", "the first woman novelist", "the first time women gained access to education", and so on, disregard the non-Muslim subjects of the Ottoman Empire and their public participation. Public and scholarly debates over how to account for the violent transformations of the 1910s and 1920s continue to be polarized. In recent years, a growing body of literature has challenged both the Orientalist and nationalist frameworks of earlier historiographies. Yet, there are surprisingly few studies that are able to move beyond methodological nationalism: histories of Armenian women, Turkish women, Kurdish women, Arab women, Greek women, and so on, exist as parallel, non-intersecting histories. There are even fewer studies that analyze masculinities, sexualities, and gender relations at large.
Drawing on Hrant Dink's legacy of exploring our "shared" histories, as well as our shared present and future, our aim in this workshop is to go beyond such methodological nationalism. We seek to encourage, instead, a debate on the contexts of differentiation (and unification) along gender and ethnic lines. We welcome all papers that explore the ways in which definitions and practices of gender and ethnicity have together shaped and have been shaped in turn by political and economic transformations in Anatolia and its neighboring regions from the early 20th into the 21st century.
Application deadline is March 1, 2009.
Call for papers and the application form
Organizing Committee
Akþin Somel
Ayþe Kadýoðlu
Ayþe Gül Altýnay
Fikret Adanýr
Hülya Adak
Iþýk Özel
Lanfranco Aceti
Leyla Keough
Nedim Nomer
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