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ABSTRACT
This article explores the neoliberalization of mass male circumcisions, a type of social assistance in Turkey. Male circumcision is a religious and medical practice widely performed in Muslim-majority Turkey, and when this procedure is organised for the poor in large numbers, it is referred to as mass male circumcisions. The article argues that since the 2000s, the AKP (Justice and Development Party) has neoliberalized mass male circumcision by transforming it into an economic and symbolic resource for competing hospitals as well as shaping the ‘deserving’ urban poor families into consumer-like actors. The article further shows the limits and contradictions of this process. In doing so, it challenges the binary between neoliberalism and welfare, and views social assistance as another potential site of neoliberalization that recrafts the society and the state in the image of the market, cutting across economic and non-economic spheres.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For instance Latin America (Roberts, Citation1995; Weyland, Citation1999), Thailand (Phongpaichit & Baker, Citation2008), and Turkey (Akça, Bekmen, & Özden, Citation2014; Zencirci, Citation2015).
2 Interestingly, anthropologist Collier (Citation2011) draws attention to the fact that one of the tenets of the Washington Consensus as originally defined by John Williamson was that healthcare and education should be objects of government expenditure.
3 It is important to note that I do not claim that all forms of social assistance under the AKP are neoliberalized. I only claim that we should pay attention to the kinds of subjectivities that are produced through social assistance and neoliberal subjectivity can be one of them (and is in the case of mass circumcision).
4 The number of religiously motivated associations (RMAs), for instance, increased in the 1990s and peaked under the AKP rule (Göçmen, Citation2014). These associations provide in-kind aids such as groceries, fuel, clothing, and cash-transfers (e.g. scholarship) for those in need. The main financial source of these associations was donations from newly rising pious businessmen and their organizations (e.g. MUSIAD). The religiously motivated charity has thus legitimized the growing economic activities of the conservative bourgeoisie.
5 http://gazetearsivi.milliyet.com.tr/GununYayinlari/lymBQQQp9Poxy2VU9_x2F_j5mQ_x3D__x3D_ 08/08/1994.
6 http://gazetearsivi.milliyet.com.tr/GununYayinlari/FZf9Cq0Bk4ek5_x2B_iFSCqPFg_x3D__x3D_08/29/1995.
7 When analyzing economic markets, Bourdieu argues, we should take into account the material and symbolic characteristics of commodities since such characteristics shape how markets operate (Bourdieu, Citation2005). This insight, I suggest, can also be useful in examining the symbolic markets of social assistance where different characteristics of products can, to some extent, account for different configurations of these markets (e.g. are social aids perishable or not? Do they have to be renewed regularly? Do they embody unique cultural meanings?)
8 These habits, inadvertently, matched the economic interests of health officers who wanted to conduct transactions with families outside their workplaces and working hours so that they could keep their circumcision services off the books.
9 The Ministry of Health of Turkey Health Statistics Yearbook 2014 http://saglik.gov.tr/TR/dosya/1-101702/h/yilliktr.pdf.
10 The Ministry of Health of Turkey Health Statistics Yearbook 2008 https://www.saglik.gov.tr/TR,11647/saglik-arastirmalari-genel-mudurlugu-saglik-istatistikleri-yilligi-2008.html and 2010 https://www.saglik.gov.tr/TR,11650/saglik-arastirmalari-genel-mudurlugu-saglik-istatistikleri-yilligi-2010.html.
11 MLPCARE, ACIBADEM, Baskent Universitesi Hastaneleri, MEMORIAL, and MEDICANA.
12 The Green Card was introduced in 1992 to meet the healthcare demands of those who were left out by the corporatist social security regime.
13 To protect the anonymity of my informants, I use pseudonyms in this article.
14 Hürriyet is one of major Turkish newspapers founded in 1948.
15 Ülkücü refers to the supporters of the ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party.
16 Oguz Karadeniz, Asisp Annual Report 2012 Turkey: Pensions, Healthcare, and Long-term Care, 2012.