Abstract
Apart from a few studies after 2000, Kurds and Kurdishness are almost absent in psychology studies in Turkey. In this chapter, we argue that a domestic colonial mentality lies behind such a systematic denial that has eventually led psychology in Turkey to transform into a ‘Turkish’ psychology by systematically excluding various groups (i.e. Others) for the sake of the national progress principle of Turkish modernisation. We employ a decolonial approach (i.e. denaturalisation) to reveal the ruptures and continuities of colonial dichotomies via representations of Self (i.e. in-group) and Others (i.e. out-group) in psychology texts across the twentieth century by subjecting selected works of influential psychologists to discourse analysis. We found that while the ‘Turkish’ Self was reconstructed via Dominant, Progressive and Modern, various Others were reconstructed via Masses and Outdated interpretative repertoires across selected materials and time. As a first attempt to show a domestic colonial mentality pierced into various stages of psychological knowledge production in Turkey, our findings contribute to the critical psychology literature and open doors for further research on the scope and manifestation of coloniality in ‘Turkish’ psychology.
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Notes
- 1.
For the full text of the speech delivered on the tenth anniversary of the foundation of the republic, see http://www.columbia.edu/~sss31/Turkiye/ata/onuncuyil.html.
- 2.
Although the concept of Turkish/ness signifies a political-territorial definition for citizens, the ethnic and culturalist idea involved in the definition, as well as legislation of the concept, is contested (see Yeğen, 2004). Throughout this chapter, we use the term in the quotation marks to highlight the racialised aspect of psychological knowledge production that includes denial, ignorance and exclusion of Others or overrepresentation of Turks in research and psychology text to depict a homogenious Turkish nation..
- 3.
State intervention in universities and freedom of thought has a long history in Turkey that has almost become an academic culture by decennial purges and dismissals of academics who oppose the statist doctrine (see, Günal, 2013), which has highly accelerated recently (Konuk, 2018). Psychology as a discipline took shape under this repressive academic culture (McKinney, 1960) that eventually disconnected from its context (Vassaf, 1982) and became a “poor imitation” of the American mainstream (Göregenli, 2010) under the influence of politically biased figures (Batur, 2006: Kılıç, 2016).
- 4.
Although the emergence of the Turkish republic set the milestone in the modernisation process of Turkey, its origin goes back to the late Ottoman empire (Karpat, 2002) which goes beyond the scope of this chapter. Here, we focus on the transformation of progression doctrine that transferred from Ottoman elites to Republican cadres on an ideological level (Mardin, 1971; Zürcher, 2014) in which psychology played a critical role (Kılıç, 2016; Gülerce, 2006). Thereby, we use Turkish modernisation as an umbrella term to cover both late Ottoman attempts and the nation-state formation of Turkish republic.
- 5.
It is important to note that given the space constraints and our focus on the trajectory of dominant ideology lying behind the representation of Self and Others, we rely only on a handful of publications that correspond to the prominent studies of their era (see Appendix). Yet, material selection is a part of our analysis that is explained more elaborately in the following sections in relation with historical background of the texts and the authors.
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Appendix
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Bayad, A., Şen, E. (2023). How Did ‘Turkish’ Psychology Become the Mainstream? A Discourse Analysis on the Trajectory of Its Colonial Legacy. In: Şen, E., Sandal Önal, E., Sefa Uysal, M., Acar, Y.G. (eds) The Political Psychology of Kurds in Turkey. Palgrave Studies in Political Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33291-3_9
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