Refractions of Civil Society in Turkey

Abstract

REFRACTIONS OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN TURKEY Daniella Kuzmanovic New York: Palgrave Macmi llan, 2012 (x iv + 211 pages, bibliography, index, i llustrations) $85.00 (cloth)In Refractions of Civil Society in Turkey, Daniella Kuzmanovic offers an ethnographic engagement with both the concept of and practices associated with civil society in contemporary Turkey. She situates her project within a broad literature on the rise of civil society organizations (CSOs) globally since the end of the Cold War, frequently referring to the anthropological work of John and Jean Comaroff. She also addresses a more particular field of ethnographic work in Turkey focusing on relations between citizens and the state and exemplified by the work of Yael Navaro-Yashin, Jenny White, and Esra Ozyurek. Adopting Navaro-Yashin's argument that the binary of state and civil society is more an abstraction than a clear analytical catego- rization, Kuzmanovic holds that ethnographic investigation should focus on the way civil society activists conceive of their work. To this end, she draws on the field of existential anthropology and particularly the work of Michael Jackson, which endeavors to show how practices such as activism contribute to the making of autonomous, agentic subjects (30). She returns to this theme throughout the book as she grapples with the overarching questions of what civil society is and how it functions in the Turkish milieu.Kuzmanovic performed approximately seventy interviews throughout 2005 and 2006 with a variety of interlocutors, including representatives of twenty-seven CSOs from across Turkey's sociopolitical spectrum. She also attended numerous seminars, worked with some of the organizations she studied, and collected publicity materials. Her analysis is supported with transcribed interviews, field-note excerpts, and occasional illustrations.Sincerity (samimiyet) is, for Kuzmanovic, the key term for under- standing how civil society is discussed in Turkey. Activists wish to appear sincere, while often questioning the of others. Kuzmanovic's task is to map the social territory of this clearly subjective and relational term and to assess the work it performs. The sociopolitical context plays a major role in how the of a CSO is perceived, and Kuzmanovic highlights three cleavages that characterize this context: (1) the secular/religious divide, (2) differences on how Turkey should integrate and interact with the outside world, and (3) the divide between leftists, on the one hand, and the often cooperating forces of right-wing nationalists and the Turkish state, on the other. Activists and the CSOs they work with are judged both by the public and by other CSOs in terms of their perceived position vis-a-vis these cleav- ages, with sincerity functioning as a kind of catch-all term that validates such judgments. These positions can sometimes literally be mapped within Turkey. CSOs in Ankara, for instance, are frequently perceived as more secu- larist and state-focused, while those in Istanbul are more likely to be seen as coming from a variety of political perspectives, including Islamist, and may have stronger ties to the international community. But can also be assessed with reference to a number of other factors. For the individual activist, life experiences such as having spent time in prison for a cause or having been excluded from school for wearing an Islamic headscarf can increase one's credibility, as can being a volunteer rather than a paid worker. Even the type of organization one works for often has implications, with some (usually conservative) activists seeing religious foundations (vakiflar) as particularly sincere, while networks (orgutler) are often associated with questionable activities, including terrorism, in part because the term orgut has come to function as shorthand for a decentralized organization with a revolutionary mindset, whether this is actually the case or not. …