Visualization of culture, history and memory in Turkey: museum politics in the post-1980s

Abstract

This thesis explores the museum as an institution of the modern state. It seeks to uncover the transformation in the museum in which the visualization and organization of the information of the past has shaped in Turkey in the post- 1980s. On the one hand, extending beyond the 1980s, the emergence of the modern museum in the nineteenth century is conceptualized as the encyclopedia of the nation building through which its culture and history are represented. On the other hand, the initial practices of the Late Ottoman and Early Republican Era are presented in order to reveal the function of the museum in the power relations. The museum in the modern sense is framed as the public space and the early practices in the Peoples Houses constitutes one of the main axis of this study in order to discuss the publicity in the museum and its function in the building of power relations. The change in the post-1980 context in the museum is examined in effect with the transformation in the concepts of time and space through which the idea of modernity extended in the body of the museum. In this study, the transformation of these basic notions of modernity in the space of museum is basically discussed in terms of the changing representation strategies in the body of the museum by post-1980s. The emergence of private museums, the physical change in the structure of the museum by extending beyond the walls and following a less linear narration and the emergence of multi-cultural representations are put forward as the basic unit of analysis in order to reveal the transforming social space and the politics in the body of the of museum by the post-1980s.