Papers by kursad ertugrul
De Gruyter eBooks, Jan 18, 2021
1970 öncesi sosyoloji çalışmalarında sosyal hareketler bir kolektif hareketler biçimi olarak ele ... more 1970 öncesi sosyoloji çalışmalarında sosyal hareketler bir kolektif hareketler biçimi olarak ele alınmaktaydı. Küreselleşmenin etkisiyle sosyal hareketler evrilme sürecine müdahil olmuştur. Sosyolojik bağlamda toplumsal değişim ve dönüşümlerin sonucunda sosyal hareketleri açıklamada kuramsal kriz temsiliyeti ortaya çıkmıştır. Yeni sosyal hareketler paradigması sosyal hareketlerin değişen özelliklerine vurgu yaparak aktörler, yapı ve tema alanı, hedefler, örgütsel yapı, duygu ve eylem biçimi gibi değerler bakımından sosyal hareketlerden ayırmaktadır. Bu çerçevede ortaya çıkan çevre hareketleri, sosyal hareketlerden farklı olarak "yeni yaşam modeli" perspektifini ortaya koymaktadır. Bu bağlamda ilk dönemdeki 'doğaya dönüş' gibi bir öneriyle ortaya çıkmayıp, yaşam kalitesi, konut, kentsel ulaşım, yeşil alanların tahribi, kamu hizmetleri, topluluk hareketleri, nükleer enerji politikası, kamuya açık alanlar gibi sorunlarla ilgili önerilerini, yönetim ve karar verme koşullarıyla ilişkilendirmeleri ve bunlara çözüm olarak da kendi kendine yeterli, mahalli radyolar, kolektif yardım ağları ve kooperatif örgütlenmeleri önermektedir.
De Gruyter eBooks, Jan 13, 2021
Middle East Critique, Jul 3, 2022
This article defines the Gezi insurgency as a case of 'counter-conduct' with a he... more This article defines the Gezi insurgency as a case of 'counter-conduct' with a heterotopia in a Foucauldian sense and compares it with similar movements to underline its peculiarity. It argues that Gezi cannot be defined as an 'anti-austerity' or 'anti-dictatorship' movement. Rather, it was a struggle against the neoliberal-cum-neoconservative conduct under AKP rule and its leadership taking the form of a pseudo-presidential regime. Gezi not only was a search for a different conduct but also a possible self-conduct through self-invention in prefigurative experimentations with different ways of being and practicing direct democracy in the reclaimed public spaces that characterized the action process. What sustained this counteraction process was the spontaneous constitution or deployment of certain platforms like Blok and Çarşı which did not, in themselves, express or represent any given social or political organization nor a corresponding form of a generic identity. In the Gezi insurgency, actors tended to outflow their defining social categories and become a part of the series of performances in which a sense of self-transformation has been common.
This study explores the characteristics of postmodern complexity as a social and aesthetic condit... more This study explores the characteristics of postmodern complexity as a social and aesthetic condition in Turkish fiction. The reflections of this condition are intellectually registered in the novels of Turkish author Hasan Ali Toptas. His selected works are taken as representative of the postmodern avant-garde. Lyotard's reflections on the postmodern condition and the avant-garde are deployed in this analysis - in an extensive interpretation of Lyotard's analytical work, it is suggested that the postmodern avant-garde in the fiction of Toptas represents a creative inquiry into both the form and the content of the novel in terms of possible expressions of the sublime. Toptas's work, it is argued, successfully exposes the ultimate failure in representing the sublime by way of a definite subject. Fragmented, dissolved and traversed by social complexity, no form of subject can adequately represent the sublime. In the postmodern condition, the only possible register of the su...
Middle East Critique
This article defines the Gezi insurgency as a case of 'counter-conduct' with a he... more This article defines the Gezi insurgency as a case of 'counter-conduct' with a heterotopia in a Foucauldian sense and compares it with similar movements to underline its peculiarity. It argues that Gezi cannot be defined as an 'anti-austerity' or 'anti-dictatorship' movement. Rather, it was a struggle against the neoliberal-cum-neoconservative conduct under AKP rule and its leadership taking the form of a pseudo-presidential regime. Gezi not only was a search for a different conduct but also a possible self-conduct through self-invention in prefigurative experimentations with different ways of being and practicing direct democracy in the reclaimed public spaces that characterized the action process. What sustained this counteraction process was the spontaneous constitution or deployment of certain platforms like Blok and Çarşı which did not, in themselves, express or represent any given social or political organization nor a corresponding form of a generic identity. In the Gezi insurgency, actors tended to outflow their defining social categories and become a part of the series of performances in which a sense of self-transformation has been common.
In this paper, it is argued that a persistent and entrenched European particularism undermines th... more In this paper, it is argued that a persistent and entrenched European particularism undermines the universality of human rights in the European Union (EU). It is institutionalised through the constitution of the citizenship of the EU and securitarian policies of migration control. What makes it apparent and problematic is the tendency of the EU to affirm the universality of human rights in the post-Amsterdam era. Therefore, the case of the EU is important and interesting in terms of unravelling the contradiction between particularist policies and the universality of human rights. Moreover, the tension between the universality of human rights and particularism in the case of the EU is illustrative of a universal problem in the enforcement of human rights; politically manufactured limitations imposed on universal human rights leave specific non-dominant groups unprotected against the power that targets them. ÖZET Bu makalede, etkinliğini derinleşerek sürdüren Avrupalı kimliği merkezli (tikelci) yaklaşımın Avrupa Birliği (AB) içinde insan haklarının evrenselliği ilkesini zeminsizleştirdiği tartışılmaktadır. Bu yaklaşım, AB vatandaşlığının oluşumu ve güvenlik merkezli göç kontrolü politikaları yoluyla kurumsallaştırılmıştır. Amsterdam Atlaşması sonrası dönemde AB'nin insan haklarının evrenselliği ilkesini olumlaması bu yaklaşımın sorunlu görünmesine yol açmıştır. Bu nedenle, AB örneği kimlik merkezli (tikel) politikalarla insan haklarının evrenselliği arasındaki çelişkinin açımlanması bakımından ilgi çekici ve önemlidir. Ayrıca, insan haklarının evrenselliği ve tikelci yaklaşım arasındaki gerilim insan haklarının yaşama geçirilmesiyle ilgili evrensel bir sorunu da açığa çıkarmaktadır; insan haklarına siyaseten dayatılan kısıtlamalar, baskın olmayan grupları, onları hedef alan güce karşı korunmasız kılmaktadır.
Middle East Critique , 2022
This article defines the Gezi insurgency as a case of 'counter-conduct' with a heterotopia in a F... more This article defines the Gezi insurgency as a case of 'counter-conduct' with a heterotopia in a Foucauldian sense and compares it with similar movements to underline its peculiarity. It argues that Gezi cannot be defined as an 'anti-austerity' or 'anti-dictatorship' movement. Rather, it was a struggle against the neoliberal-cum-neoconservative conduct under AKP rule and its leadership taking the form of a pseudo-presidential regime. Gezi not only was a search for a different conduct but also a possible self-conduct through self-invention in prefigurative experimentations with different ways of being and practicing direct democracy in the reclaimed public spaces that characterized the action process. What sustained this counteraction process was the spontaneous constitution or deployment of certain platforms like Blok and Çarşı which did not, in themselves, express or represent any given social or political organization nor a corresponding form of a generic identity. In the Gezi insurgency, actors tended to outflow their defining social categories and become a part of the series of performances in which a sense of self-transformation has been common.
This paper discusses how Turkey’s otherness to European identity, as represented by the European ... more This paper discusses how Turkey’s otherness to European identity, as represented by the European Union (EU), was turned into an asset during the beginning of the AKP rule. To the extent that the AKP represented the Islamic cultural other against both the secular establishment of Turkey and the EU, its promise to fulfill the Copenhagen political criteria and adopt EU norms and standards provided a possibility of ‘a model’ for the EU. This was the promise of a self-transforming cultural other becoming a part of the EU normative order and representing this system in its region. In the period between 2002 and 2005, there was a compromise on Turkey’s projected identity between the EU and the AKP. Yet this early promise and the ensuing compromise could not be sustained and realized in the following phases of the AKP rule. First stagnation between 2005 and 2010 and then a break wasted this promising new beginning.
Bogazici Journal, 2006
In this article, the articulation of Heideggerian existentialism to the post-Marxist theory of po... more In this article, the articulation of Heideggerian existentialism to the post-Marxist theory of politics is examined critically. With this articulation, post-Marxism aims to grant politics an ontological status by using concepts which are detached from their philosophical context. The article argues that this articulation is problematic, as the theoretical and philosophical problems generated by this incorporation remain unresolved. However, it also argues that this problematic articulation reveals the inherent theoretical limitations of post-Marxism, which are basically related to the dissolution of "the social" from the theoretical horizon of post-Marxism.
New Perspectives on Turkey, 2012
This study uncovers the neo-conservative “style of thought” informing the ideology of the Adalet ... more This study uncovers the neo-conservative “style of thought” informing the ideology of the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, AKP). The AKP's politico-cultural strategy in pursuing Turkey's goal of full membership to the EU is constituted on this ideological ground. Based on critical constructivism, this article argues that the AKP constitutes a domestic-foreign policy nexus of change characterized by a neo-conservative “style of thought” that aims to redefine the identity of Turkey. Along this line of politics, Europe appears as a politico-cultural space, as an ideational structure, enabling and limiting the AKP to act as a political and cultural agent. While the AKP adopts and sublimates the position of the “other” in the ideational structure of Europe, it reconstitutes the identity and interests of Turkey through neo-conservative ideas. Both are mutually reinforcing.
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2009
This study gives voice to three ways of becoming modern in the Turkish experience through a readi... more This study gives voice to three ways of becoming modern in the Turkish experience through a reading of the novels of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Oğuz Atay, and Orhan Pamuk. The first possibility, represented by the works of Tanpınar, is more conservative and defensive, concerned with preserving what is considered authentic culture. Anti-individualistic, it nonetheless attempts to appropriate Western culture and the change generated by its impact within “the traditional essence.” The second possibility, represented by the works of Atay, is open ended: it reaches beyond the limitations of the Turkish social-historical domain to create a new individual (and implicitly social) existence while remaining critical of Western “individuality.” The last possibility, represented by the works of Pamuk, expresses the dominant concept of “modernization” in Turkey, which equates modernization with Westernization. Individualization comes to mean replication of “Western individuality.”
The Unwanted Europeanness?, 2021
Uploads
Papers by kursad ertugrul