Erdoğanism as a Transnational Social Engineering Project and Turkish Muslim Diaspora in the West

The article examines the conceptual foundations and scientific, sociocultural and philosophical prerequisites of imagology, the field of interdisciplinary research in humanitaristics, the subject of which is the image of the “Other” (foreign country, people, culture, etc.). It is shown that the imagology appeared as a response to the crisis of comparatives of the mid-20th century, with a special role in the formation of its methodology played by the German comparatist scientist H. Dyserinck and his Aachen School. The article analyzes the influence on the formation of the imagology of post-structuralist and constructivist ideological-thematic complex (auto-reference of language, discursive history, construction of social reality, etc.), linguistic and cultural turn in the West in the 1960s. Shown is that, extrapolated to national issues, this set of ideas and approaches has led to a transition from the essentialist concept of the nation to the concept of a nation as an “imaginary community” or an intellectual construct. A fundamental difference in approaches to the study of an image of the “Other” in traditional comparativism and imagology, which arises from a different understanding of the nation, has been distinguished. It is concluded that the imagology studies the image of the “Other” primarily in its manipulative, socio-ideological function, i.e., as an important tool for the formation and transformation of national and cultural identity. The article identifies ideological, socio-political factors that prepared the birth of the imagology and ensured its development in western Humanities (fear of possible recurrences of extreme nationalism and fascism in post-war Europe, the EU project, which set the task of forming a pan-European identity). It is concluded that the imagology, on the one hand, has actualized an important field of scientific research — the study of the image of the “Other”, but, on the other hand, in the broader cultural and historical perspective, marked a departure not only from the traditions of comparativism and historical poetics, but also from the humanist tradition of the European culture, becoming part of a manipulative dominant strategy in the West. To the culture of “incorporation” into a “foreign word” in order to understand it, preserve it and to ensure a genuine dialogue of cultures, the imagology has contrasted the social engineering and the technology of active “designing” a new identity.

The Soviet Secularization Project in Central Asia: Accommodation and Institutional Legacies

Eurostudia ◽

10.7202/1032440ar ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 11-31 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hélène Thibault

Keyword(s):

Central Asia ◽

Religious Beliefs ◽

Social Engineering ◽

Religious Practices ◽

Soviet Rule ◽

Engineering Project ◽

Regulatory Institutions ◽

Institutional Legacies

This article investigates the effects of the Soviet social engineering project and forced secularization in Central Asia. Emphasis is placed on the ideological foundations of Marxism-Leninism, its stance on atheism, its holistic character, and its ideological exclusivity. The article details the measures taken by authorities to eradicate religious beliefs during the seventy years of Soviet rule. Taking the case of Tajikistan, it highlights the remaining influence of Soviet policies on state-religion relations by reviewing the functions and responsibilities of current regulatory institutions as well as laws and official discourses framing religious practices.

The Dangers of the Gift Master

The Battle for Fortune ◽

10.7591/cornell/9781501719646.003.0002 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 27-66

Author(s):

Charlene Makley

Keyword(s):

Moral Economy ◽

Social Engineering ◽

The West ◽

Beijing Olympics ◽

The Gift ◽

Local Officials ◽

Basic Parameters ◽

Anthropological Approach ◽

The Village ◽

Engineering Projects

This chapter lays out the basic parameters and stakes of development encounters in the Tibetan region of Rebgong through the story of the author’s expulsion from the village household in which she was living in 2008. The narrative attributes those events to the polluted offering scarves she had inadvertently brought into the home, as local officials anxiously anticipated Tibetan unrest ahead of the Beijing Olympics. The author uses that account to lay out her approach to the politics of personhood and presence among Rebgong Tibetans. She argues that personhood for them is grounded in the moral economy of ambivalently charged hospitality relations (“the battle for fortune”) amidst their intensifying fears of the threat posed to households, villages, and monasteries by state-sponsored market logics and social engineering projects. The Tibetan offering scarf, construed as both a sign and a material medium of exchange, serves to illustrate a linguistic anthropological approach to media and the intersubjective dynamics of meaning, agency and efficacy. The chapter thereby considers the consequences throughout the valley of the arrival of powerful outsiders bearing gifts under the auspices of an increasingly authoritarian capitalism unleashed in the Develop the West campaign.

(Re)Constructing the Baikal-Amur Mainline

Transfers ◽

10.3167/trans.2020.10020317 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (2-3) ◽

pp. 250-269

Author(s):

Olga Povoroznyuk

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Russian Far East ◽

Far East ◽

Social Engineering ◽

Railway Track ◽

Engineering Project ◽

Continuity And Change ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Technological Modernization ◽

Late Socialism

The construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in East Siberia and the Russian Far East in the 1970s and 1980s was the largest technological and social engineering project of late socialism. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the BAM was dogged by economic bust, decline, and public disillusionment. BAM-2, a recently launched state program of technological modernization, aims to complete a second railway track. The project elicits memories as well as new hopes and expectations, especially among “builders of the BAM.” This article explores continuity and change between BAM-1 and BAM-2. It argues that the reconstruction efforts of the postsocialist state are predetermined by the durability of the infrastructure as a materialization of collective identities, memories, and emotions.

Fitting theZeitgeist: Jewish Territorialism and Geopolitics, 1934–1960

Contemporary European History ◽

10.1017/s0960777318000206 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 27 (3) ◽

pp. 351-369 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

LAURA ALMAGOR

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Turning Point ◽

Social Engineering ◽

Engineering Project ◽

Political Behaviour ◽

Post War ◽

Industrial Science

This article demonstrates the connection between the ideology and activities of the Jewish Territorialist Movement and broader geopolitical trends and discourses during the late interwar and immediate post-war period. The Territorialists, active from 1934 within the Freeland League for Jewish Territorial Colonisation, were representative of such contemporary trends and discourses, especially those connected to prevailing approaches to peoplehood, territory and space. The Freelanders relied on accepted notions and practices such as colonialism and colonisation, ‘whiteness’, race, biopolitics and agro-industrial science, as well as (empty) spaces and un(der)developed territories. The Territorialists’ alignment with geopolitics makes the movement's little studied history a relevant chapter in the larger story of Jewish political behaviour. Moreover, the continuities in Territorialism's aspired social engineering project help to problematise the notion of 1945 as a turning point in twentieth century geopolitical thinking.

INFRASTRUCTURE, ETHNICITY, AND POLITICAL MOBILIZATION IN NAMIBIA, 1946–87

The Journal of African History ◽

10.1017/s0021853720000031 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 61 (1) ◽

pp. 45-66

Author(s):

STEPHANIE QUINN

Keyword(s):

Ethnically Diverse ◽

Social Engineering ◽

Political Community ◽

Community Members ◽

Engineering Project ◽

Colonial State ◽

Mining Town ◽

Contract Workers ◽

Migrant Laborers ◽

Colonial Settlement

AbstractThis article uses the copper mining town Tsumeb to examine urban infrastructure, ethnicity, and African political solidarities in apartheid Namibia. To translate apartheid to Namibia, South Africa re-planned Namibian towns to reinforce colonial divisions between two classes of African laborers: mostly Ovambo migrant laborers from northern Namibia and Angola and, secondly, ethnically diverse laborers from the zone of colonial settlement and investment, the Police Zone. Housing and infrastructure were key to this social engineering project, serving as a conduit for official and company ideas about ‘Ovambo’ and Police Zone laborers. Yet Africans’ uses of infrastructure and ethnic discourses challenged, and provoked debates about the boundaries of urban social and political belonging. Between the 1971–2 general strike of northern contract workers and the 1987 strike against the multinational Tsumeb Corporation Limited, which involved northern contract workers and community members, Africans built a political community that challenged both company and colonial state.

(Re)Constructing the Baikal-Amur Mainline

Transfers ◽

10.3167/trans.2020.1002317 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (2-3) ◽

pp. 250-269

Author(s):

Olga Povoroznyuk

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Russian Far East ◽

Far East ◽

Social Engineering ◽

Railway Track ◽

Engineering Project ◽

Continuity And Change ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

Technological Modernization ◽

Late Socialism

Abstract The construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in East Siberia and the Russian Far East in the 1970s and 1980s was the largest technological and social engineering project of late socialism. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the BAM was dogged by economic bust, decline, and public disillusionment. BAM-2, a recently launched state program of technological modernization, aims to complete a second railway track. The project elicits memories as well as new hopes and expectations, especially among “builders of the BAM.” This article explores continuity and change between BAM-1 and BAM-2. It argues that the reconstruction efforts of the postsocialist state are predetermined by the durability of the infrastructure as a materialization of collective identities, memories, and emotions.

EVERYDAY FORMS OF STATE POWER AND THE KURDS IN THE EARLY TURKISH REPUBLIC

International Journal of Middle East Studies ◽

10.1017/s0020743810001200 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 43 (1) ◽

pp. 75-93 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Senem Aslan

Keyword(s):

Social Engineering ◽

Unintended Consequences ◽

The State ◽

Engineering Project ◽

Turkish Republic ◽

Local Society ◽

Private Lives ◽

Turkish State ◽

Mere Existence ◽

State Employees

AbstractThis article analyzes the exercise of state authority in Kurdish areas in the early Turkish Republic and discusses the state's ineffectiveness in dominating these areas. It argues that the mere existence of a highly ambitious social-engineering project, increased state presence in the region, and military power does not mean high levels of state capacity. Based on primary documents, this article discusses the problems of autonomy, coherence, and implementation that the Turkish state encountered in its nation-building project. It shows how the state's ideological rigidities and its shortage of resources and dedicated personnel undermined its capacity to control and shape the Kurdish areas. While the state attempted to regulate citizens’ private lives in Kurdish areas, the local society also tried to mold state employees in accordance with its own interests. A blurred boundary between the state and society was one of the unintended consequences of increased state presence in everyday life.