Ideological productions in human geography as an apparatus of the state/power

ABSTRACT

… ‘Humanity’ is an apparatus that could be used ideologically (Schmitt 1963, 55).

This study analyses the ideological practices of the state/power -including panoptic surveillance and organic integrity practices- in the discipline of human geography through the lenses of curriculum, scientific freedom, and autonomy. Human geographers have long analysed the sociospatial traits of societies using scientific perspectives. However, in many socioeconomically less-developed countries like Turkey, human geography and other social sciences, portray social issues through the meticulously designed ideological expectations of powers, rather than universal scientific criteria. This ideological structure damages the scientific development of human geography and hinders students’ abilities to practice coexistence with other groups by instilling a dependent consciousness.

KEYWORDS:

• Human geography in Turkey
• indoctrination
• academic autonomy and freedom
• curriculum and ideology
• surveillance
• organic integrity

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Turkey is a successor state to the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922) which included different religions and ethnic identities. Three different political thought plans to revive the Empire were devised by the İttihat ve Terakki (1889-1918), which was influential in government in the last period of the Empire. By that time, the Ottomans had lost control of all but the Anatolian peninsula.

2 The first policy was Ottomanism, a political view defending the existence of different religions and ethnic identities in equal conditions and under the governance of a non-centralist state. This policy was discarded by national movements of the non-Muslims and, especially, after the Balkan Wars (1912-1913).

3 The second policy separated the Anatolian peninsula from the Non-Muslims who were considered a threat. These policies and military plans enabled Muslims with different ethnic identities in Anatolia to gather against the non-Muslims. It is an (implicit) Muslim Contract (Ünlü 2018), with the principal concept of being a Muslim. ‘While some non-Muslim groups (Greeks, Armenians) were excluded from the homeland perception, the Ottoman- Turk Muslim majority, albeit heterogeneous, were included in the homeland context and transformed into a uniform organic whole through homogenization’ (Turk, Kurd, Cherkes, Laz) (Durgun 2010, 153).

4 The third and final policy distinguished Turks from Muslim Anatolians. ‘The idea of a common Turkish homeland was used to invalidate the differences in the society’ (Özkan 2012, 4). It was the Turkicization of non-Turkish Muslim communities (Kurdish, Arabic, Cherkes, Laz, Albenian, Greek, Pomak)- the Turkishness Contract. This contract is a political ideology considering and defending Turkish language, history, tradition, and culture as uniform (see: Ünlü 2018; Durgun 2010). In brief, Turkishness is an ethnic based ideology. Turkish-Islamic ideology, however, includes ethnic and religious hybridization. Though the Turkishness ideology is dominant, both ideologies were needed to be effective. To consolidate power, Turkishness and Turkish- Islamic partial political partnership was chosen. I discursively combine these two ideologies with the power and the state, mutually complementing each other.

5 Minority Rights Group International. ‘World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples'. http://minorityrights.org/ minorities/alevis/ Accessed: 11 August 2021.

6 For example, the rector appointment to Boğaziçi University was made by a Presidential Decree published in the Official Gazette on January 1, 2021 without considering the tradition or constituents of the school. The protests against this appointment are still (as of February 24, 2022) ongoing.

7 The database stores postgraduate thesis studies conducted in Turkey. https://tez.yok.gov.tr/UlusalTezMerkezi/ (accessed: July 3, 2021).

8 One doctoral thesis successfully completed in the US (The State University of New York at Binghamton) was rejected in 2021 by the UAK. The title of the thesis is: ‘Who Rules Turkey Between 1980 and 2008? Business Power and the Rise of Authoritarian Populism' (Gazete Duvar, August 4, 2021). The thesis was not accepted due to its ‘content and topic’.

9 - Türk Coğrafya Dergisi (1943-)

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- Coğrafya Dergisi (1985-)

- Doğu Coğrafya Dergisi (1995-)

- Marmara Coğrafya Dergisi (1996-)

- Coğrafi Bilimler Dergisi (2003-)