Papers by Yagmur Karakaya
Sociological Forum
This article examines the Panorama Museum of Conquest in Istanbul, a triumphalist example of stat... more This article examines the Panorama Museum of Conquest in Istanbul, a triumphalist example of state-led nostalgia, to understand how a national emotional attachment is sustained or contested through new forms of engagement with history. Using the dual-process model of cognition, particularly the differentiation between declarative and nondeclarative personal and public cultures, I take the museum as a manifestation of neo-Ottomanist public culture where national identities are performed, to delve into the process of emotional meaning making. I complicate the link between affective experience at the museum and national emotions, and theorize the different coupling possibilities among the two. When the personal and public culture seamlessly match, with people following the highly schematized cues, visitors understand their emotions as pride and gratitude. When the personal and public culture are loosely coupled, a group of visitors lament the bygone glorious era-which does not reflect the felt state at the museum. Some visitors are able to synthesize different political projects during their visit, where others want to sanitize public discourse from neo-Ottomanist emotions altogether. The dual-process model helps answer why in the same national-sensory setting, people emote differently, whereby complicating our understanding of national-attachment to the state.
P opulist movements seek to bolster the power of "the people" and undermine elites. In the United... more P opulist movements seek to bolster the power of "the people" and undermine elites. In the United States a businessman, Donald Trump, has convinced a significant portion of the population that he is a man of the people. We answer three interrelated questions about what may be Trump's biggest "win": the transformation of populist discourse for a new century. How does Trump embed himself inside his followers' own deep story? How does he fuse their story with a tale of American restoration? And how does he delegitimize politics as a vocation and valorize politics as business? Drawing on a systematic analysis of Trump/MAGA rallies held in four different regions from 2015 to 2021, we analyze how Trump used his performance to crystalize a distinctly American style of populism. We focus on the cultural accomplishment of his performance, particularly the creation of a business-friendly rhetoric that leverages popular cultural idioms to legitimate politics not as a vocation, but as a business. We find that Trump uses the popular idioms of standup comedy and competitive sports culture. This performance contributed to his 2016 win, yet framing politics as a game to be won runs the risk of reducing deliberative democratic process to election-night outcomes, makes political parties into opposing teams, and divides voters into winners and losers.
Soon after the Covid19 pandemic hit, sports were halted, resulting in a natural hiatus ripe for c... more Soon after the Covid19 pandemic hit, sports were halted, resulting in a natural hiatus ripe for collective memory practices. For basketball culture, this remembrance predominantly took the form of nostalgia, mostly for the 1990s and the Michael Jordan era through ESPN's series The Last Dance; when professional men's basketball is considered to have been better. In this paper, we ask what this perceptional superiority signifies. We find that the nostalgic story of '90s NBA, told by fans and media pundits, has three characteristics. First, the game was tougher, competitive, not amicable, less globalized, hence, more masculine. Second, team loyalty mattered more in the past and hence players stayed with a sole team, as they tried to defeat worthy rivals. Third, the sport was apolitical. We argue that this sporting nostalgia, which intersects with dominant ideas about masculinity, competition, celebrity, and American society's "apolitical" relationship to sport, is used as a cultural corrective to police the actions of current Black NBA players on and off the court. Through the juxtaposition of lead characters of Michael Jordan and Lebron James, nostalgia is used as a racialized symbolic boundary marker to reinforce and produce the "right" professional Black athlete deserving of public adoration.
Sociological Forum, 2019
In this article, we analyze local Holocaust Remembrance Day (HRD) ceremonies promoted by the Inte... more In this article, we analyze local Holocaust Remembrance Day (HRD) ceremonies promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in Spain and Turkey. We investigate whether these memory practices have the potential to lead to a cosmopolitan engagement with the host countries' own pasts. Focused on the same memorial events in highly contrasting and diverse national contexts, this article examines how supranational memory discourses are adopted and reinterpreted within the nation-state framework. In both cases, especially in Turkey, the national legitimation profiles are bolstered by the universal frameworks that Holocaust memory provides. Even though memory travels transnationally, the nation-state still is the most powerful translator of this past.
The conquest of hearts: the central role of Ottoman nostalgia within contemporary Turkish populism, 2018
In contemporary Turkey, populism goes hand in hand with neo-Ottoman nostalgia. They make a stigma... more In contemporary Turkey, populism goes hand in hand with neo-Ottoman nostalgia. They make a stigmatized duo, as nostalgia is interpreted as lingering in the past and populism is deemed as the opium of the uninformed, emotional masses. In this paper, I complicate this vision through an ethnographic discourse analysis of the 2016 Conquest of Constantinople Rally, organized by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). I show how nostalgia helps boost the authenticity claim that social performances seek to achieve. In a ritualistic setting, the rally portrays a Manichean worldview predating to Ottoman times, underlines the power of the "people" against nefarious others, and is organized around a leader who is posited as a savior. By relying on forty-five in-depth interviews in five cities, I investigate the extent to which this social performance convinces the audience. Three interpretative perspectives emerged from participants' responses: Spectacle Seekers see the rallies as a necessity and as providing emotional uplift as the state's duty; Appraising Skeptics approve the commemoration, yet are skeptical of the authenticity of the effort; and History Guardians deem the Ottoman past as sacred and regard the AKP's use of it as emotional manipulation.
In contemporary Turkey, a growing interest in Ottoman history represents a change in both the off... more In contemporary Turkey, a growing interest in Ottoman history represents a change in both the official state discourse and popular culture. This nostalgia appropriates, reinterprets, decontextualizes, and juxtaposes formerly distinct symbols, ideas, objects, and histories in unprecedented ways. In this paper, we distinguish between state-led neo-Ottomanism and popular cultural Ottomania, focusing on the ways in which people in Turkey are interpellated by these two different yet interrelated discourses, depending on their social positions. As the boundary between highbrow and popular culture erodes, popular cultural representations come to reinterpret and rehabilitate the Ottoman past while also inventing new insecurities centering on historical " truth. " Utilizing in-depth interviews, we show that individuals juxtapose the popular television series Muhteşem Yüzyıl (The Magnificent Century) with what they deem " proper " history, in the process rendering popular culture a " false " version. We also identify four particular interpretive clusters among the consumers of Ottomania: for some, the Ottoman Empire was the epitome of tolerance, where different groups lived peacefully; for others, the imperial past represents Turkish and/or Islamic identities; and finally, critics see the empire as a burden on contemporary Turkey.
Work, Aging and Retirement, 2016
New Perspectives on Turkey, 2017
In contemporary Turkey, a growing interest in Ottoman history represents a change in both the off... more In contemporary Turkey, a growing interest in Ottoman history represents a change in both the official state discourse and popular culture. This nostalgia appropriates, reinterprets, decontextualizes, and juxtaposes formerly distinct symbols, ideas, objects, and histories in unprecedented ways. In this paper, we distinguish between state-led neo-Ottomanism and popular cultural Ottomania, focusing on the ways in which people in Turkey are interpellated by these two different yet interrelated discourses, depending on their social positions. As the boundary between highbrow and popular culture erodes, popular cultural representations come to reinterpret and rehabilitate the Ottoman past while also inventing new insecurities centering on historical “truth.” Utilizing in-depth interviews, we show that individuals juxtapose the popular television series Muhteşem Yüzyıl (The Magnificent Century) with what they deem “proper” history, in the process rendering popular culture a “false” version. We also identify four particular interpretive clusters among the consumers of Ottomania: for some, the Ottoman Empire was the epitome of tolerance, where different groups lived peacefully; for others, the imperial past represents Turkish and/or Islamic identities; and finally, critics see the empire as a burden on contemporary Turkey.
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Papers by Yagmur Karakaya