Homogenizing a nation: |Turkish national identity and migration-settlement policies of the Turkish Republic (1923-1939)

Abstract

This study basically aims to analyse the processes of nationalisation and the construction of national identity in Turkey from a historical perspective. One of the main components of the formation of nation-states is homogenization of population, in other words, homogenization of ethnic, cultural and linguistic differences that are outside the imagined boundaries of nation. In this sense, migration and settlement policies are fundamental instruments resorted in the course of construction of nationstate. The present study aims to investigate the migration and settlement policies of the interwar period which are highly neglected in the studies concerning the processes of the construction of national identity and nationalization in Turkey. One of the most basic assertions this study relies on is that analysis of migration policies makes a significant contribution to the the analysis of the definition of national identity. States take their decisions, regarding who can be admitted as immigrant, within the framework of the imagined boundaries of nation. For this reason, that the cultural, ethnic and linguistic characteristics of the immigrants should not contradict with the current definition of nation, or the immigrants should be homogenized by assimilatory policies is one of the main aspects of the migration policies. On the basis of this assertion, the present study investigates who were admitted as immigrant and how they were settled within the boundaries of the country during the interwar period. By investigating the migration and settlement policies, the main consequence this study arrives at is that, in contrast to the notion of constitutional citizenship in which Turkishness is defined on the basis of citizenship-territoriality, an essentialist definition of Turkishness was developed in the course of national identity construction and it was the determinant definition in the political processes. According to this definition, being Muslim, speaking Turkish and possessing Turkish culture are the basic characteristics of Turkish nation which is conceived to be the legitimate owner of the country. Those who are not identified with Turkish nationality are included into the definition of Turkishness only when they possess these properties. The study analyses, how it was attempted to Turkify the population, within the framework of this definition, by means of migration and settlement policies. In this sense, one of the most important themes the research emphasizes is the Turkification of the Muslim linguistic minorities, especially of the immigrants, through demographic policies, which is not paid sufficient attention by the existing studies.