Looking Back

Yesim Bayar is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at St. Lawrence University, New York. She is the author of Formation of the Turkish Nation-State (1920-1938).

This is an excellent study of how minoritized populations like the Armenians who have had genocidal violence in their past negotiate two diasporas, a diaspora in modern Turkey where they become minoritized through state and societal violence on their own ancestral lands, and a diaspora in contemporary Canada where they join a multitude of immigrant populations.

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1: Talking about the Violent PastState Violence and Imagining the Nation1915: “The Heavy Sound of Silence” and RememberingWeaving the Past with the PresentChapter 2: Encounters with the StateThe Myriad Ways of Pursuing Turkification: The State’s LensExperiencing and Making Sense of “Hot Nationalism”Serving the Nation: Military Service, Citizenship and Being a MinorityFurther Encounters with the State and “Nation Talk”Chapter 3: Education, Nationalist Politics, and Minority Lives(Re)Designing the Educational Domain: The State’s LensLife Chances and Managing Institutional HurdlesBiography, History, and Unearthing the PastSociability and Discrimination: Interactions with Friends and TeachersChapter 4: Remembering Places, and PeopleRemembering Places: Life in IstanbulRemembering Summers on the Princes’ IslandsInteractions Across the Ethnoreligious DivideChapter 5: Encounters with Strangers Speaking Turkish and Regulating Surnames: The State’s LensSpeaking Turkish at the “Right Places” and the “Right Way”“Living with One’s Name”: Strategies and Practices in Everyday InteractionsConclusionReferencesIndex