Spatial Constructions of Homeland in Turkish National Identity: Exclusion and Inclusion of Europe.

• Author: Suleymanoglu-Kurum, Rahime

Introduction

Although the word "space" basically refers to a geographical context, it is closely related to power and limitation, because the social construction of space is a political process that can be defined in terms of controlling a certain area of a group. (1) By establishing power on a certain physical-human geography, one of the most effective means available to the modern state in controlling such space is the construction of national identity. Accordingly, the "inside" and "outside" of Turkish national identity has been defined according to the axes of narratives of national history and geography, (2) which has been changed in the direction of the cultural--especially religious--orientation of the Turkish political elites. Considering that the space, as a means of a nation building process, is a "fictional phenomenon", (3) just like collective memory and time, this study perceives the space--in the context of its relationship with politics--as a dynamic and changeable phenomenon rather than a static one, and examines the different spatial constructions used in the service of Turkish foreign policy.

Due to Turkey's uncertain geographical home, Turkish policymakers used different spatializations, building on various ingredients of different supranational visions, (4) using geography, history, and culture interchangeably. This was a continuity from the Ottoman polity which comprised of Turkic nomads in Anatolia, between the times of the Byzantine and Mongol empires, later expanded to the Balkans in the 14 (th) century. Therefore, the Ottoman state elites used "an eclectic mix of elements" from these state traditions to legitimize its rule over various subjects, (5) such as relying on various meanings (translations) of the words "civilisation, empire, democracy, and citizenship" to address European and non-European audiences. (6) This practice was adopted in the transformation from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish nation-state so as to legitimize and reconfigure social relations. (7)

Although the founding Kemalist elites argued that Turkey was not a continuity of the Ottoman Empire in terms of culture and politics by imagining a Turkish identity and geography limited to the national frontiers, the construction of a Turkish national identity, both in this era and later, have had traces of the pan-Turkic (Turanism), pan-Islamist (Islamism), and Eurocentric (Blue Anatolianism), supranational imaginations that emerged from the legitimizing practices of the Ottoman and Turkish state elites to configure social relations both with its subjects and the outside world. These supranational imaginations--with which Turkish nationalism is linked--have included different narratives of the inclusion and exclusion of Europe, and therefore the various spatializations of Europe, sometimes referring to geography, and at other times to civilization, history, culture, and values, which have been designed to ensure that Turkey is not inferior to the West/Europe. The so-called "paradox of Turkish nationalism" regarding the West, which is seen both as an enemy and the ideal category, (8) can be considered to be the result of these--contrary--supranational imaginations, existing together within the national identity. The hybridity of Turkish national identity between Eastern and Western or Islamic and secular is referred to in the academic literature with concepts such as "crossroads" (9) and the "liminal". (10)

To turn this plurality into a political gain, the Turkish political elites throughout the Republic's history typically used words such as "bridge" and "gate" to refer to Turkey's geopolitical location. From the 2000s, however, it can be observed that the geographical imagination in Turkish foreign policy discourse has changed considerably. With the 2000s, starting with former Foreign Minister Ismail Cem (1997-2002), extensive reference was made to Turkey as a "central country" and "world state" in relation to the civilizations that define modern Turkey. This pattern remained in place after the election of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi - AK Party) government in 2002. Yet, in the proceeding years of the AK Party government, particularly after 2011, relations with the world in general and neighboring countries in particular began to be established through regional alliances and common Islamic culture. In this context, the AK Party government repositioned Turkey in the world, and transformed the rhetoric of a "bridge country" into one of a "central country" with a neo-Ottomanist vision. In this new vision, the concept of a "central country" was used to prescribe the ways in which relationships with lands that were formerly under Ottoman influence could be re-established. Yet, in both periods, the political elites relied on concepts of history, civilization, and culture, but attached to them different meanings and geographical reference points to serve preferred foreign policy options.

The relationship between national identity and Turkish foreign policy has been widely discussed in academic literature in relation to culture. (11) The impact of Turkey's interactions with Europe on Turkey's hybrid identity, both as European and Asian, and Western and Islamic, is also widely debated. (12) Yet these studies did not make explicit links with the spatial approaches, and did not focus on how East and West are discursively constructed and spatialized by political elites in the service of Turkish foreign policy. Kosebalaban's study is relevant in this context, as he problematized national identity as a contested space. Defining Turkey and Japan as "torn identities", Kosebalaban shows that contesting sub-national identities with distinct readings of national interests and security shape foreign policy outputs. (13) We contribute to this literature by going beyond the East-West debacle, to explore how discursive space is used by Turkish political elites to construct the national identity through Turkish supranational identities that offer different definitions of East and West, Europe and Asia, in navigating between cultural, civilizational, and historical ingredients. By stemming from this official reposition of Turkey, or the shift in the country's geographical rhetoric, we aim not only to cover the unique characteristics of the spatialization of homeland in the post-2000 period and its distinguishing features from early official national identity discourses, but also to reveal Europe's place in this spatial construction.

We draw a picture of the spatial construction of homeland from the date of Turkey's establishment to the end of the 20 (th) century, in relation to the political elites' imagination of national identity, then we focus on specific examples which demonstrate the perception of space in the discourse of Turkish policymakers since 2000. In order to unpack the discursive constructions of space around Turkish supranational identities, we rely on primary and secondary data. For the primary data, we rely on government programs, the proceedings of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, and published interviews and speeches of the governmental elites since 2000; for the secondary data, we use academic publications, news stories reported online, and actual policies and policy justifications reflected in media outlets. When using secondary data, we paid the utmost attention to ensure that the data sources were representative of the governmental elites' perceptions. Due to space limitations, our direct quotations and presented data include illustrative samples of the analysed data, which allows us to capture previously missing interpretations of these texts (14). Our analysis reveals that in the post-2000 era, supranational imaginations--which have always played a role in spatializing the Turkish homeland throughout the history of the Turkish Republic--have navigated their way to the political core, and the supranational imagination, which is linked to the national space and identity, has been transformed from a Blue Anatolian narrative to a neo-Ottoman vision in the post-2011 period.

The Relationship between Space and National Identity and the Spatial Constructions of Turkish Homeland

Browning argues that nation states seek recognition by constructing identities that present their distinctive characteristics and uniqueness. (15) Modernity imposes different ways of relating identity to otherness, (16) such as the spatialization of identity with culture, values, and the arts, and the traditions of a nation arising from its history. In this respect, the culture of a particular place or region becomes an element of national identity, and may incorporate the intangible qualities of a nation together with the music, folklore, language, and handicrafts which represent the identity of a place, and which are therefore linked to national identity. (17) If national identity is defined in terms of a historical territory, common historical myths and memoirs, common culture and economy, and common legal rights and duties, (18) this would provide the country with considerable room for maneuver regarding its foreign policy endeavours.

In the modern nation state, political actors gain legitimacy to the extent that they control the geographical context and transform it socially. Hence, in the modern era, space has ceased to mean just a geographical location, and has become one of the foundations of group and individual belongings. (19) Henri Lefebvre conceptualises space in the modern sense not only as the grounds of political structure but the political and social itself. (20) According to this view, politics is carried out through space, because the social construction of space itself is a political process. In this political process, the state constructs "physical and discursive space". (21) The concept of discursive space is constantly being redefined, but refers to cases in which geography is...