Abstract
This chapter delineates the mainstream representation of children’s political agency in Turkey through the analysis of three different cases with an interdisciplinary methodology combining history and cultural studies with a longer-term perspective. The main sources of the research are the discourses about children and politics within legal documents, school curricula, newspapers, social media, and official documents of the political parties and statesmen. The chapter reflects upon the boundaries of childhood and boundaries of politics in Turkey through: (1) politics as role-playing in 23 April Children’s Day ceremonies; (2) the ‘unchilding’ of politicized (‘dangerous’) children; and (3) passivity and victimization discourses that deprive children of their will, resilience, and agency.
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Notes
- 1.
For further information on Sertel, see Libal, 2012.
- 2.
The full text is available at http://www.un-documents.net/gdrc1924.htm
- 3.
Turkish Hearth was the new cultural “national club” of the nationalist regime, where ideologically loaded political and artistic gatherings were organized. For more information, see Üstel, 1997.
- 4.
The “seat” ceremony was canceled in 2020 due to Covid 19 preventive measures.
- 5.
For the video of her talk, https://odatv4.com/vid_video.php?id=8EB8D
- 6.
“Bu konularda Sayın Cumhurbaşkanımız gerekeni yapıyor bunları tartışmak bana düşmez.”
- 7.
Türkiye Vakti, “Remember Child”, 9 June 2018, https://youtu.be/z2CHkmRWIqw
- 8.
Türk Polis Teşkilatı, @EmniyetGM, “175 Yıldır Güvenliğiniz için Her Yerdeyiz”, twitter, 9 April 2020, 9:31 AM, https://twitter.com/emniyetgm/status/1248151504411930625
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Maksudyan, N. (2022). Children and Politics in Turkey: Role-Playing, Unchilding, Victimization. In: Şen, H.H., Selin (Retired), H. (eds) Childhood in Turkey: Educational, Sociological, and Psychological Perspectives. Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08208-5_8
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