Border panic over the pandemic: mediated anxieties about migrant sex workers and queers during the AIDS crises in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Looking back to remember the “arrival” of AIDS in Turkey, this article explores how the spread of the new disease fueled border panic in Turkey from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. Drawing on a rich array of material from the archives of national newspapers and magazines, this article analyzes the media discourse on migrant sex workers from the former USSR and the first HIV-positive men. It shows how both groups were seen as intruders bringing the virus from outside Turkey’s borders to its territory. In both cases, I argue, fear of the spread of the virus across borders became entangled with anxieties about the movement of ideas, images, lifeworlds, and meanings relating to sexuality that were discursively constructed as fundamentally alien to Turkish ones. The movement of sexually and racially “other” bodies across borders was seen as a threat to the fragile construed border between “Turkishness” and “foreignness”.

KEYWORDS:

• Border
• pandemic
• AIDS
• migration
• sex work
• queer

Acknowledgement

The ideas expressed in this article were first presented at the Sexuality and Borders Symposium at New York University in April 2019. I would like to thank the organizers Michelle Pfeifer, Billy Holzberg, and Anouk Madörin for inviting me to that stimulating symposium and giving me the chance to discuss my thoughts with inspiring scholars such as Sabiha Allouche, Radha Hegde, Fadi Saleh, Elif Sarı, Miriam Ticktin, Alyosxa Tudor, and Paula-Irene Villa. I am also thankful to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), which funded my trip to New York. In addition, I would like to thank Tunay Altay and Gökçe Yurdakul for inviting me to the Humboldt University in Berlin to present an earlier version of this paper. I am very grateful to Pip Hare, Anouk Madörin, and this journal’s anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and thought-provoking comments. Their valuable suggestions have been crucial at various stages of editing. I very much appreciate my intellectual exchange on borders and media with Tanja Maier. I am also grateful to María do Mar Castro Varela for her mentorship and friendship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Milliyet, 1993. “Nataşalara çözüm” January 1, p.15 My translation.

2 Hürriyet, 1985. “AIDS’ten acı ibret.” November 7, 1. Hürriyet, 1985. “AIDS’ten ölen Türk Almanya’da hastalanmıştı.” November 6, 1. Hürriyet, 1985. “Ve işte AIDS-2” November 16, 6.

3 Hürriyet, 1985. “Bir musibet bin nasihatten iyidir”, November 5, 11.

4 Hürriyet, 1985, “M için tecrit emri”, November 6, 1.

5 Hürriyet, 1985, “M için tecrit emri”, November 6, 11. My translation

6 Hürriyet, 1985, “Beyoğlu’na AIDS darbesi”, November 5, 11. My translation

7 Hürriyet, 1985, “M için tecrit emri”, November 6, 1.

8 Hürriyet, 1985, “ … Ve Murtaza’nın ümitsiz kaçışı”, November 6, 6.

9 Hürriyet, 1985, “M’yi saklayanlar AIDS tehlikesinde”, November 7, 8.

10 Hürriyet, 1985, “Beyoğlu’na AIDS darbesi”, November 5, 11

11 Hürriyet, 1985, “Tecrit odası M’yi bekliyor” November 7, 8.

12 Ibid.

13 Hürriyet, 1985, “M Paniği”. November 4, 11.

14 Milliyet, 1993, “Nataşalara çözüm,” January 1, 15.

15 Milliyet, 1993, Nataşalara AIDS testi, January 1, 24.

16 Milliyet, 1993. Kimdir bu Nataşa?, January 19, 24.

17 Ibid.

18 Nokta, 1987, “AIDS’te kırmızı alarm: Turist akını başladı.” May, 31.

19 Milliyet 1993 “Kimdir bu Nataşa?”, January 19, 24. Milliyet, “AIDS ve namus”, April 13, 20.

20 Milliyet, 1993 “Kimdir bu Nataşa?”, January 19, 24. My translation

21 Hürriyet, 1985. “AIDS’ten acı haber” November, 7; Hürriyet, 1985, “AIDSten ölen Türk … ” November, 8.

22 Milliyet, 1994, “Laleli’de AIDS’li iki nataşa,” November 16, 6.

23 Alpay, Şahin. 1996. “AIDS ve namus.” Milliyet. April 13, 20.