Papers by Ozlem Altan-Olcay
British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2012
"We are FamilyWomen’s Studies International Forum. 72: 9-16, 2019
This article studies the institutionalization and implementation of policies addressing women’s l... more This article studies the institutionalization and implementation of policies addressing women’s low labor force participation in Turkey. It examines how state actors and institutions translate gender mainstreaming and work–family balance in the Turkish policy context. Approaching the state as a multi-layered and hierarchical set of institutions and practices, we trace the emergence of a policy architecture that marginalizes questions of women’s employment and gender equality. Our goal is to shed light on how state actors and institutions actively participate in vernacularizing transnational gender policy norms and, in the process, bend these norms so far that they produce contradictory meanings and practices.
This article analyses the process whereby ‘natural’ citizens of one country mobilize their resour... more This article analyses the process whereby ‘natural’ citizens of one country mobilize their resources so that their children receive by birthright, the citizenship of a rich liberal democracy. Utilizing the case of Turkish upper
classes, who give birth in the USA in order to benefit from the jus soli principle, we trace the emergence of new inequalities at the intersection of multiple citizenship regimes. We show that, by mobilizing resources in markets of health care, travel, and real estate, those with means can acquire US citizenship for their children in expectation of future benefits. Because
they are able to access ‘valuable’ citizenships, these actors can strategically combine privileges within nation states with inequalities between citizenship regimes at the global level for the children. Their differential access to citizenship enhances the gate-keeping functions of citizenship. Based on
these observations, we draw an analogy between citizenship and property regimes, understood broadly.
This article analyses the process whereby members of new classes in Turkey mobilize their
resour... more This article analyses the process whereby members of new classes in Turkey mobilize their
resources so that their children receive US citizenship at birth. Following the actors’ selfperceptions
and motivations, we argue that US citizenship acquisition is a new capital accumulation
strategy, aimed to forestall against risks in intergenerational transmission of class privileges. With
this article, we aim to contribute to cultural class studies in the following ways: we suggest that
the unpredictable nature of classification struggles becomes more evident in contexts where
transition to neoliberalism is accompanied by dramatic political shifts. We situate the desire
for US citizenship within class anxieties in Turkey, informed by historical meanings attached
to the binary of ‘the West’ versus ‘the East’. Finally, we break down the boundaries between
different country-cases by drawing on citizenship as capital, rather than as a backdrop that actors
share. We explain the new ways in which class distinction strategies are transnationalized in the
contemporary period.
This article explores development programs that focus on women’s entrepreneurship with the aim to... more This article explores development programs that focus on women’s entrepreneurship with the aim to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality, on the one hand, and household poverty reduction and economic growth, on the other.
Utilizing a case study from Turkey, it studies the class-based contradictions inherent in the idea of the “entrepreneurial woman.” The first contradiction lies between the imaginary of the “entrepreneurial woman,” which guides the way in which the programs are devised, and the actual women targeted. This plays out in the difference between the actual resources women can deploy for their economic activities
and what is expected of them. A second class tension involves the liminal position of the local NGO officers between the donors and the beneficiaries. Their efforts to
sustain their distinction from the latter make the logic of the programs appear to work. This article proposes that these tensions offer insights into the problems
concerning the rationalities of development programs, as well as the everyday mechanisms that enable their continued existence.
This paper explores the implications of spatial production of academic knowledge on the Middle Ea... more This paper explores the implications of spatial production of academic knowledge on the Middle East, through the critiques of Orientalist discourses on the ''Muslim woman.'' It begins with an examination of the success of postcolonial studies and scholarship on democratization in challenging racist perceptions and politics in the West. Then it reflects on the ways in which this knowledge production travels and is reconfigured in places where power inequalities are different. This requires a consideration of the regional consequences of either an over-emphasis on differences in agencies of ''Muslim women'' or a relative silence on issues of gender inequality. The paper's suggestion is to shift the focus from representation and discourse to the structural circumstances in which ordinary men and women's agencies play out; various political mechanisms which participate in the production of acceptable cultural practices; and patterns of resistance, which may defy arguments about culturally specific definitions of agency. This is a quest for making the ''exotic'' familiar, without exoticizing the familiar.
This paper aims to explore one practice of citizenship spreading among privileged groups in Turke... more This paper aims to explore one practice of citizenship spreading among privileged groups in Turkey. Making use of the tradition of birthright citizenship, increasing numbers of couples choose to give birth to their children in the United States. This is a transnational process, whereby “natural” citizens of one country use various sources of capital at their disposal to opt to give their children citizenship in another, more industrialized one. This case challenges existing conceptualizations of transnational citizenship, which focus on the palliative effect it might have for vulnerable populations within nation-states, as well as immigrants. We conceptualize the case of privileged minorities, who are able to mobilize resources to acquire a second citizenship for their children, as market embedded transnationalism. This citizenship emerges as a result of calculations about future expectations of benefits, and is obtained as a result of market mechanisms. In this case, the meanings of transnational citizenship can become part of market performances and, therefore, contribute to existing inequalities in novel ways.
This contribution explores the promotion of women's entrepreneurial activities in Turkey. Using p... more This contribution explores the promotion of women's entrepreneurial activities in Turkey. Using participant observation and semi-structured interviews conducted during 2011–12 in two civil-society organizations that run programs fostering women's entrepreneurship, this study shows how neoliberal ideologies interact with ideas of labor, responsibility, and gender. Emphasizing individual rationalities and entrepreneurial attitudes, these civil-society programs contribute to the construction of model subjects of neoliberal citizenship, who are expected to be self-governing and self-sufficient. Yet problems embedded in the neoliberal paradigm and these particular organizations’ commitment to women's rights produce contradictions in implementation. The goal of entrepreneurial women is predicated on the assumption that women contribute more to their families’ well-being than men. The programs’ attempts to construct potential entrepreneurs out of women for this purpose reveal problems with discourses of individual self-sufficiency and responsibility.
Bu makale, Beyrut ve Kahire’nin belli bir elit grubunun ülkelerindeki devlet siyasetine ve içinde... more Bu makale, Beyrut ve Kahire’nin belli bir elit grubunun ülkelerindeki devlet siyasetine ve içinde yaşadıkları toplumun genel kültürel karakterine dair söylemlerini ve bu söylemlerin kendi toplumsal konumlarını tasvirlerinde oynadığı rolü inceleyecektir. Elitlerin bu temaları dile getiriş biçimleriyle 1990 sonrası ana akım kalkınma söylemleri arasındaki ortaklıklara dikkat çekilmeye çalışılacaktır. Bu toplumsal grubun mensupları bilgi, kültür ve siyaset gibi terimlere yükledikleri anlamlarla, ana akım kalkınma söylemlerini basitleştirerek yeniden üretmekte ve doğrudan gönderme yapmaksızın, kendi kimliklerini bu söylemler aracılığıyla tanımlamaktadırlar. Bu örtüşmelerde de, kalkınma söylemlerinin daha az dikkat çeken bir kullanım alanı belirginleşmektedir. Azgelişmişlik sorunlarının kaynağı resmi karar alıcı kurumlar ya da belli yeterliliklerden yoksun toplumlar olarak algılandığı ölçüde, diğerlerinin yoksun olduğu niteliklere sahip olma iddiasını taşıyanlar için örtük bir üstün olma durumu ortaya çıkar. Böylece, eğitim altyapıları, sınıf konumları ve uluslararası ağlara ve dillere erişimleri sayesinde, kalkınma söylemlerinin dilini doğallıkla konuşabilen toplumsal gruplar faillik kazanır ve kendilerine ayrı bir kimlik tesis ederler.
Claiming Local Distinction:
Development Discourses in the Middle East and their Agents
This article analyzes the discourses of particular elite groups in Beirut and Cairo on state politics and cultures of their countries and the role these play in their self-representations. It draws attention to the parallels between such themes and post-1990s development discourses. The meanings the groups attribute to terms such as knowledge, culture and politics reproduce mainstream development definitions in a simplified manner. In this shift the knowledge production of development discourses becomes occluded as intellectual labor, but it starts performing other roles: uses by these social groups contribute to establishing their own credibility and social distinction. As long as underdevelopment is attributed to public policy making and societies lacking certain capacities, those, who can argue to have what the state and the public lack, can make implicit claims to social distinction. In other words, the actors who articulate this particular logic with ease, due to their educational backgrounds, class positions and access to international networks, can utilize them to establish their agency and hierarchical positions in the local context.
This article studies the proliferation of discourses of rationality and responsibility among a pa... more This article studies the proliferation of discourses of rationality and responsibility among a particular elite social group in Lebanon and Turkey, as they remember student mobilization of their past. I offer these episodes of student mobilization as acts of citizenship that create and make use of rapturous moments in the histories of their countries and institutions. I extend these acts of citizenship to the contemporary context
and study the ways in which they become part of discourses of citizenship in unexpected ways. I propose that these narratives draw upon a set of local practices that reflect meanings of citizenship, originating from Western discourses of liberalism,
albeit following a different route. In the narratives, violence and irrationality become the defining features of politicized behavior, whereas being civilized epitomizes good
manners and rationality. Such boundary-drawing exercises contribute to making conceivable exclusionary social orders based on the idea of a hierarchical distribution of reason and social utility.
This article comparatively assesses the meaning of civil society in Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey, by... more This article comparatively assesses the meaning of civil society in Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey, by utilising the results of a study conducted among civil society actors. In recent decades, civil society has become integral to discussions of political liberalisation. At the same time, there is a growing rift between international democracy promotion through investment in civil society and the more critical literature on the relationship between the two. This article makes three contributions to these debates by comparing the actual experiences of civil society actors. First, it argues that the boundaries between states and civil societies are indeterminate, making it problematic to expect civil society organisations alone to become catalysts for regime transformation. Second, it shows that expectations of monolithic generation of civic values through civil society organisations do not reflect the actual experience of actors in this realm. Finally, it argues for taking into consideration other sources of mobilisation as potential contributors to meaningful political and social transformation.
This paper explores how discourses of nationalism and neo-liberal conceptualizations of economic ... more This paper explores how discourses of nationalism and neo-liberal conceptualizations of economic performance interact in Turkey, by analyzing cultural productions about business elites and workers in the media. I take up both business elites’ attempts at self-representation and how mainstream media portrays them to argue that these actors attempt to draw the contours of national belonging with respect to economic success. Even though the representations are diverse in definitions of national identity, they all formulate service to the nation in terms of business success and market performance. In addition, struggles with syndicated labor also produce relevant discourses of economic necessity and rationality only to be challenged by other ideas of political belonging, drawing their force from social rights. These reveal the contingency of formulations that construct desirable citizenship on the basis of one’s ability to contribute to economic growth. Through these examples, I suggest that discourses about market economies do not necessarily divest themselves of nation-state frameworks. Instead, they interact with cultural tools in local contexts, producing new social and political constellations that attempt to explain shifting social stratifications. I argue that these struggles over representation are part of a terrain of banal nationalism, transforming connotations of economic rationality, national belonging, and citizenship.
The consolidation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 took place in opposition to multiple ‘others’ –... more The consolidation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 took place in opposition to multiple ‘others’ – that is, multiple ideologies with alternative models of modernity and state formation. An important aspect of the resulting negotiations was their gendered nature. This article explores the multiplicity of subject-positions made available to women using the nationalist literary production of the first half of the twentieth century. By linking literary production with the official discourse, it argues that blurring the distinction between public and private discourses can better capture the gendered character of the nationalist discourse. The analysis details the common denominators between articulations about women's bodies and familial ties, and the building of a nationalist discourse. In these works, typologies of mothers, fathers, daughters, step and adopted ones, and those female figures seen as threats to these families tallied with the ongoing attempts to popularise a particular imagining of the nation. The desired unity of the republic, figuring in these roles, seemed to depend on controlling, taming and erasing a variety of designated identities and ideologies.
Middle Eastern Studies, 2008
Articles and Papers by Ozlem Altan-Olcay
This article analyses the process whereby members of new classes in Turkey mobilize their resourc... more This article analyses the process whereby members of new classes in Turkey mobilize their resources so that their children receive US citizenship at birth. Following the actors' self-perceptions and motivations, we argue that US citizenship acquisition is a new capital accumulation strategy, aimed to forestall against risks in intergenerational transmission of class privileges. With this article, we aim to contribute to cultural class studies in the following ways: we suggest that the unpredictable nature of classification struggles becomes more evident in contexts where transition to neoliberalism is accompanied by dramatic political shifts. We situate the desire for US citizenship within class anxieties in Turkey, informed by historical meanings attached to the binary of 'the West' versus 'the East'. Finally, we break down the boundaries between different country-cases by drawing on citizenship as capital, rather than as a backdrop that actors share. We explain the new ways in which class distinction strategies are transnationalized in the contemporary period. In 2011, an estimated number of 600 Turkish women in the later stages of their pregnancy travelled to and stayed in the United States for several months; they put their lives in Turkey on hold and spent tens of thousands of dollars, all for the purpose of giving
This article explores the practice of giving birth in the U.S. for the purpose of obtaining U.S. ... more This article explores the practice of giving birth in the U.S. for the purpose of obtaining U.S. citizenship for the newborn children, among upper and upper-middle class mothers who otherwise are permanently located in Turkey. Focusing on their motivations, anxieties and practices, we situate our analysis with respect to discussions of intensive mothering, transnational motherhood and multi-layered meanings of citizenship. We suggest that the motivations women have for traveling to and staying in the U.S. in the later stages of their pregnancy reveal a new terrain of intensive mothering, tied to locally specific perceptions of future unpredictability and restrictions on individual choice. This particular discourse of intensive mothering involves the promotion of individualisticdecision-making and individualized efforts to control macro-processes, and reveals how citizenship acquisition for the children reproduces and disguises inequalities at the transnational level. Yet, this is also an intensely emotional process, not only indicative of the pressures on mothers, but also women's multilayered conflicts of belonging and identity across spaces and scales of citizenship.
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Papers by Ozlem Altan-Olcay
classes, who give birth in the USA in order to benefit from the jus soli principle, we trace the emergence of new inequalities at the intersection of multiple citizenship regimes. We show that, by mobilizing resources in markets of health care, travel, and real estate, those with means can acquire US citizenship for their children in expectation of future benefits. Because
they are able to access ‘valuable’ citizenships, these actors can strategically combine privileges within nation states with inequalities between citizenship regimes at the global level for the children. Their differential access to citizenship enhances the gate-keeping functions of citizenship. Based on
these observations, we draw an analogy between citizenship and property regimes, understood broadly.
resources so that their children receive US citizenship at birth. Following the actors’ selfperceptions
and motivations, we argue that US citizenship acquisition is a new capital accumulation
strategy, aimed to forestall against risks in intergenerational transmission of class privileges. With
this article, we aim to contribute to cultural class studies in the following ways: we suggest that
the unpredictable nature of classification struggles becomes more evident in contexts where
transition to neoliberalism is accompanied by dramatic political shifts. We situate the desire
for US citizenship within class anxieties in Turkey, informed by historical meanings attached
to the binary of ‘the West’ versus ‘the East’. Finally, we break down the boundaries between
different country-cases by drawing on citizenship as capital, rather than as a backdrop that actors
share. We explain the new ways in which class distinction strategies are transnationalized in the
contemporary period.
Utilizing a case study from Turkey, it studies the class-based contradictions inherent in the idea of the “entrepreneurial woman.” The first contradiction lies between the imaginary of the “entrepreneurial woman,” which guides the way in which the programs are devised, and the actual women targeted. This plays out in the difference between the actual resources women can deploy for their economic activities
and what is expected of them. A second class tension involves the liminal position of the local NGO officers between the donors and the beneficiaries. Their efforts to
sustain their distinction from the latter make the logic of the programs appear to work. This article proposes that these tensions offer insights into the problems
concerning the rationalities of development programs, as well as the everyday mechanisms that enable their continued existence.
Claiming Local Distinction:
Development Discourses in the Middle East and their Agents
This article analyzes the discourses of particular elite groups in Beirut and Cairo on state politics and cultures of their countries and the role these play in their self-representations. It draws attention to the parallels between such themes and post-1990s development discourses. The meanings the groups attribute to terms such as knowledge, culture and politics reproduce mainstream development definitions in a simplified manner. In this shift the knowledge production of development discourses becomes occluded as intellectual labor, but it starts performing other roles: uses by these social groups contribute to establishing their own credibility and social distinction. As long as underdevelopment is attributed to public policy making and societies lacking certain capacities, those, who can argue to have what the state and the public lack, can make implicit claims to social distinction. In other words, the actors who articulate this particular logic with ease, due to their educational backgrounds, class positions and access to international networks, can utilize them to establish their agency and hierarchical positions in the local context.
and study the ways in which they become part of discourses of citizenship in unexpected ways. I propose that these narratives draw upon a set of local practices that reflect meanings of citizenship, originating from Western discourses of liberalism,
albeit following a different route. In the narratives, violence and irrationality become the defining features of politicized behavior, whereas being civilized epitomizes good
manners and rationality. Such boundary-drawing exercises contribute to making conceivable exclusionary social orders based on the idea of a hierarchical distribution of reason and social utility.
Articles and Papers by Ozlem Altan-Olcay
classes, who give birth in the USA in order to benefit from the jus soli principle, we trace the emergence of new inequalities at the intersection of multiple citizenship regimes. We show that, by mobilizing resources in markets of health care, travel, and real estate, those with means can acquire US citizenship for their children in expectation of future benefits. Because
they are able to access ‘valuable’ citizenships, these actors can strategically combine privileges within nation states with inequalities between citizenship regimes at the global level for the children. Their differential access to citizenship enhances the gate-keeping functions of citizenship. Based on
these observations, we draw an analogy between citizenship and property regimes, understood broadly.
resources so that their children receive US citizenship at birth. Following the actors’ selfperceptions
and motivations, we argue that US citizenship acquisition is a new capital accumulation
strategy, aimed to forestall against risks in intergenerational transmission of class privileges. With
this article, we aim to contribute to cultural class studies in the following ways: we suggest that
the unpredictable nature of classification struggles becomes more evident in contexts where
transition to neoliberalism is accompanied by dramatic political shifts. We situate the desire
for US citizenship within class anxieties in Turkey, informed by historical meanings attached
to the binary of ‘the West’ versus ‘the East’. Finally, we break down the boundaries between
different country-cases by drawing on citizenship as capital, rather than as a backdrop that actors
share. We explain the new ways in which class distinction strategies are transnationalized in the
contemporary period.
Utilizing a case study from Turkey, it studies the class-based contradictions inherent in the idea of the “entrepreneurial woman.” The first contradiction lies between the imaginary of the “entrepreneurial woman,” which guides the way in which the programs are devised, and the actual women targeted. This plays out in the difference between the actual resources women can deploy for their economic activities
and what is expected of them. A second class tension involves the liminal position of the local NGO officers between the donors and the beneficiaries. Their efforts to
sustain their distinction from the latter make the logic of the programs appear to work. This article proposes that these tensions offer insights into the problems
concerning the rationalities of development programs, as well as the everyday mechanisms that enable their continued existence.
Claiming Local Distinction:
Development Discourses in the Middle East and their Agents
This article analyzes the discourses of particular elite groups in Beirut and Cairo on state politics and cultures of their countries and the role these play in their self-representations. It draws attention to the parallels between such themes and post-1990s development discourses. The meanings the groups attribute to terms such as knowledge, culture and politics reproduce mainstream development definitions in a simplified manner. In this shift the knowledge production of development discourses becomes occluded as intellectual labor, but it starts performing other roles: uses by these social groups contribute to establishing their own credibility and social distinction. As long as underdevelopment is attributed to public policy making and societies lacking certain capacities, those, who can argue to have what the state and the public lack, can make implicit claims to social distinction. In other words, the actors who articulate this particular logic with ease, due to their educational backgrounds, class positions and access to international networks, can utilize them to establish their agency and hierarchical positions in the local context.
and study the ways in which they become part of discourses of citizenship in unexpected ways. I propose that these narratives draw upon a set of local practices that reflect meanings of citizenship, originating from Western discourses of liberalism,
albeit following a different route. In the narratives, violence and irrationality become the defining features of politicized behavior, whereas being civilized epitomizes good
manners and rationality. Such boundary-drawing exercises contribute to making conceivable exclusionary social orders based on the idea of a hierarchical distribution of reason and social utility.