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Accepted Paper:
What the 'authentic' can tell us: tourism, authenticity and cultural politics in Turkey
Sandra Finger (Sabanci University)
Paper short abstract:
Authenticity and Romanticism in Turkish tourist commercials reflect not only commodity imperialism and commercial colonization, but convey messages of cultural politics in present day Turkey. Tourist marketing has to be considered therefore as an efficient tool in national identity politics.
Paper long abstract:
On the homepage of the government of national tourism in Turkey, internet and television, dancing dervishes, unspoiled mythic landscapes and 'authentically' dressed people promise the original experience to Turkish people in the Turkey, a region that has been subject to a number of disparities, among others the bleeding due to permanent clashes between Kurdish rebels and the Turkish Military. The commercialization of the authentic and romantic in the commercial as motivating narrative to explore the 'lands of Turkey' does not only intend to bridge the regional economic disparities, but suggests also a specific conception of the country to be conveyed to the Turkish citizen. It is therefore not adequate to scrutinize and understand the commercialization of the 'romantic and authentic landscape' as a phenomenon of commodity imperialism and commercial colonization. This domestication of the 'wild and back warded' and at the same time silencing of the blood shed and the deaths mourned in the last decades has to be undermined by a deconstruction of the narrative produced by the ongoing nationalist and political discourse of Turkish identity.
For this I will look at the way the Turkish ministry for culture and tourism represents Turkey particularly in image. I will crystallize what image is given about Turkey, and how the harmonization of the rural countryside and the 'politically menacing' and 'dangerous' East of Turkey with the technologically advanced West of Turkey that is thought of as 'modern' and 'civilized', can be understood in the socio-political context of present day Turkey. I argue that domestic tourism in Turkey presents a key element in understanding the debate about cultural identity in Turkey and that tourism and tourist marketing has to be considered as an efficient tool in cultural and identity politics.
E-paper: this Paper will not be presented, but read in advance and discussed
The cultural politics of touristic fantasies: addressing the 'behind-the-scene' scene
EPapers