Derrida’s deconstruction: On the way to a “subject”less discourse
HASAN ÜNAL NALBANTOĞLU
This short paper on late French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, aims at pointing out both certain philosophical and etymological origins of “deconstruction” and its subsequent fate when this deliberately fluid approach declares its independence from and in spite of its author. Certain aporias involved in this thinking process are underlined, particularly with respect to tensions which arose between “subject-positions” imposed on Derrida in his journey and an essentially “subjectless” drive involved in this discourse.
After Derrida: Culture, language and death
ZEYNEP DİREK
“After Derrida: Culture, language and death” attempts to show the connection between Derrida’s understanding of language in terms of “différance” and “writing” to his own experience of French language in the Algerian colonial context, which he presents as “exemplary” in Monolinguisme de l’autre (1996). As he puts it in “Différance” (1968), différance has a double economy which Derrida tries to keep together: The restricted economy of the Hegelian Aufhebung that operates with the principle of the preservation of sense and the general economy of the expenditure without reserve, of death, which makes the loss of sense inevitable. In Monolinguisme de l’autre Derrida concentrates on the “examplary” paradoxes of his own monolinguisticism in order to make universal claims on the propriety of language. What is “proper” insofar as language is concerned, is put in question by the very essence of language, which consists of an “alienation that cannot be alienated.” Such an alienation cannot even be called “alienation” for it is the denial of the primacy of the proper, which appears to be an after effect of the différance structure. Thus the unicity and the irreplaceability of the native language whose idiom is considered to be the absolute location of sense is opened up to a general economy in which nothing is irreplaceable and the loss of sense is inevitable. Derrida argues that one can never properly inhabit one’s own language without being in exile in it, for in a certain sense language always come from the other and is always already haunted by alterity.
The political questions Derrida’s position provokes are the following: Whether and to what extent the double economy of différance can be helpful in the struggle against the repression of the native languages and cultures by the oppressive monolinguisticisme of the other who speaks the language of the law? Does Derrida ignore the specificity of the colonial experience by precisely making it examplary? How can we defend the right to speak one’s own language and the right to be educated in it without at the same time committing ourselves to the metaphysical presuppositions about the “proper” against which Derrida warns us?
Derrida and the political
CİHAN CAMCI
In this article, my objective is to show that the political possibility that can be driven out of Jacques Derrida’s texts is highly related to the tradition of metaphysics and it is an evolutionary possibility rather than revolutionary. I will try to show the intricate relation between the privileged, pivotal priority of subjectivity in philosophical tradition and the attempts to challenge this pivotal position of cognitive structures. By doing so, I will refer to Derridean position as a space within the limits of the philosophical-metaphysical as the foundations of the legal thought and the otherness of this legal thought which arouses from within the tradition itself, nevertheless, dictates itself into the place it has been lodged within. Derrida, however, does not claim that his position is different than the traditional positions, particularly the Heideggerian position that marks a shift from the central subjectivity and its privileged priority to a receptive responsibility of subject as being-in-the-world. The originality of Derridean position lies in his différance and the suspended not-yet position in relation to différance which, Derrida claims has already been located before the legal thought and effects decision making processes despite its fictituous being. I argue that this fictituous location induces to an ironic awareness for subjectivity and by virtue of this awareness a democratic politics is possible towards a democracy to come.
A study on the National Protection Law, labor relations and compulsory work in the 65th anniversary
AHMET MAKAL
In the recent years, the period of Second World War has been drawing special attention in Turkish social sciences literature. In the evaluation of the economic and social developments of the said period, much importance has been attributed to the Wealth Tax Law, imposed during the war years basically on ethnical grounds. However we should point out that the National Protection Law which was put into effect in 1940 and implemented until 1960 with interruptions, targeting wide laboring masses in the cities and in the countryside and the serious consequences of the Law in the field of labor relations have been overlooked. Under the National Protection Law, regulations protecting the workers provided by the Labor Law dated 1936 have been suspended, especially measures to protect women and child labor have been loosened, the working time of wage earners has been extended, and holidays have been limited. These practices providing the legal opportunity for an extensive exploitation on the waged labor have been instrumental in the accumulation of capital in private hands during the war years. One of the most important arrangements of the National Protection Law concerns waged compulsory work. Under this arrangement, practiced mainly in the coal mines of Zonguldak region during the years of 1940-1947, around 60.000 people were subjected to waged compulsory work. These people, forced to work against their will, had to work for wages well below the prevailing averages, under very bad sanitary and sheltering conditions, with many deaths resulting from general and occupational diseases and work accidents. The compulsory work practice, reflecting the extraordinary conditions of the war time as well as the political and social conditions of the period, had been carried out without any social control under the single party rule and continued up to the end of 1947 even after the war was over. In our study, the compulsory work phenomenon which was one of the bitter pages of Turkish social history has been extensively evaluated by using original sources and witnesses with the aim of promoting further discussions on the subject and providing ground for new research.
Turkish Economy: Who is responsible for the crises?
M. KEMAL AYDIN
This paper asserts that the neoliberal understanding of capital accumulation based on unleashed market dynamics led to the heavy economic crises of 1994 and 2001. As an important component of capital accumulation, financial liberalisation resulted in an artificial growth fuelled by foreign capital inflows aiming at speculative gains in the short run. The ensuing crises, which impoverished the country and society, should not solely be attributed to technical errors of economic management. Such an approach serves to the justification of neoliberal policies.
Foreign illegal labour force in Turkey and a research on this subject
KUVVET LORDOĞLU
This study has been prepared as part of the ‘International Immigration, Labour Force and Demographic Movements’ project supported by Marmara University Research Fund. The main subject of this work is to specify the problems of the foreign illegal labour force and its relation to the informal employment. This research conducted in Istanbul, Bursa, Tekirdağ, Kırklareli and Edirne, aims to underline the problems caused by the foreign illegal labour force and its probable effects on Turkish labour force markets in the long run. Although illegal workers have different reasons for entering the labor market, almost all of them have to work under insecure conditions which are also generally common for formal workers. There is another important problem caused by informal labor market; which is the negative impact on the wages and the working conditions of the formal labor market.
During the economical crisis -a common event in developing countries- the foreign labour force is willing to work for very low wages and this fact makes the situation even worse. It is very clear that the formal labour market is negatively affected by the extra and low-cost sources of the informal employment. In some studies, it is being argued that the impact of informal labour force helps to decrease the unemployment and brings a solution to it in a way. It is also observed that informal labour force is supported implicitly by the governments because it is regarded as an automatic solution to the problem of unemployment although it brings a loss of tax revenue. The purpose of this research is to analyse the problems of foreign illegal labour force coming from four European countries -Roumanie, Georgie, Ukraine and Moldavia- in the context of globalization and to make future prospects.
During the economical crisis -a common event in developing countries- the foreign labour force is willing to work for very low wages and this fact makes the situation even worse. It is very clear that the formal labour market is negatively affected by the extra and low-cost sources of the informal employment. In some studies, it is being argued that the impact of informal labour force helps to decrease the unemployment and brings a solution to it in a way. It is also observed that informal labour force is supported implicitly by the governments because it is regarded as an automatic solution to the problem of unemployment although it brings a loss of tax revenue. The purpose of this research is to analyse the problems of foreign illegal labour force coming from four European countries -Roumanie, Georgie, Ukraine and Moldavia- in the context of globalization and to make future prospects.
Time perception in the use of the credit card and the indebted life
ALİ ERGUR
Since the rapid proliferation of the credit card into everyday life in Turkey, significant changes have occurred in the basic constituents of social experience. As a direct consequence of a restructuring economic logic and organization on the liberal policies basis, the very fact of indebtedness, from the level of public finance to that of individual budgets, has acquired a largely approved legitimacy. Deregulation, unpredictability, spontaneity have become distinctive characteristics of such a socio-economic climate. As production has lost its fundamental referential function, social action has been adjusted, throughout the last twenty or thirty years, to consumption. This is a nearly universally valid schema of a well-known social transformation, which gave rise to both an economic liberalism and a diffused social fragmentation. The latter, tightly interwoven with the emergence of a post-industrial socio-economic organization, still continues to dissociate established modern conceptualization of social experience, which means that most of structures of integrity are dissolving. Consequently, we observe actually an implosion of identities and lifestyles, which replace class positions and consciousness. The post-industrial self finds its own references in a pseudo-autonomy deriving from an existential a-historicity, which is manifested as a highly fluid and flexible moral framework. Thus social experience has been translated into terms of a kaleidoscopic identity-constructing strategy, through panoply of consumption patterns. Indeed, the very instance of consumption seems to be the only possible existential moment. Credit card plays a central role in the perpetuation of this identity-generating consumption cycle, while inserting in it the most vital constituent that it needs: Indebtedness, which invokes both an instantly determined historicity and a future transposed into today’s immediacy. This article is based on two consecutive and interrelated field researches: The first one, a more qualitative inquiry, focuses on the modalities of credit card use of the employees of the finance sector, while the second tries to outline the general trends concerning the attitudes of consumers vis-à-vis the credit card and the relative changes in their time perception that is affected by the use of the credit card.
The “Öz Soy” Opera: A lost epic, a lost history
ORHANGAZİ ERTEKİN
The “Öz Soy” Opera is the first genuine “national” experience in the history of Turkish opera and comprises the Republic’s representation of its relations with Europe, Iran and the Middle East. Nevertheless, it has not heretofore drawn scholarly attention and has not aroused any interest either within art history or political history. The purpose of this essay is to superimpose the textual analysis of the Öz Soy Opera with the history of Turkish-Iranian relations and to show that Turkey establishes its relations with the East through the West. Through the analysis of this opera which is charged with a diplomatic mission, the approach of the early Republic towards the issue of East-West and its aesthetic orientation is discussed. The Öz Soy Opera is contextualized through the Turkish-Iranian relations of the time, particularly concerning the issue of Kurds.
Origin myth in the history of psychology and the story of Georg Anschütz
SERTAN BATUR
Origin myths are typical components of the presentist and “whiggish” interpretations of the history, which are used to validate and legitimize present ideas by a highly selective using of historical events. In order to create an impression of continuity and tradition in the history of discipline it is tried, through the origin myths, to be shown that the great thinkers or the “great men” in the history had held the same or similar ideas.
In the history of psychology in Turkey it is usual to mention, as the first name, Georg Anschütz, who was sent to Darülfünun (the former University in Istanbul) in 1915 by the German government in frame of the “educational aid” of Germany to the Ottoman Empire. He spent three years in Istanbul and taught experimental psychology at Darülfunun. After the First World War he returned to Germany, where he could get a leading position at the University of Hamburg as a party member in the Nazi-period. Because of the war he had only few students in Istanbul and he published there only one article in three years.
In the history of psychology in Turkey it is usual to mention, as the first name, Georg Anschütz, who was sent to Darülfünun (the former University in Istanbul) in 1915 by the German government in frame of the “educational aid” of Germany to the Ottoman Empire. He spent three years in Istanbul and taught experimental psychology at Darülfunun. After the First World War he returned to Germany, where he could get a leading position at the University of Hamburg as a party member in the Nazi-period. Because of the war he had only few students in Istanbul and he published there only one article in three years.
Moreover, it is known that before the arrival of Anschütz some psychology texts had already been published in Turkish and some psychology lectures had been already given at Darülfunun. In spite of this, he is mentioned frequently as the “founder” of the academic psychology in Turkey, but his life and what he had done in Istanbul isn’t known by the Turkish scholars and there isn’t any study in Turkey about his personality or his works.
This paper tries to present the life and works of Georg Anschütz and to discuss his role in the history of psychology in Turkey as an origin myth and traces the roots of the academic psychology in the Ottoman Empire back to the 19th century.
