‘Is the Turk a White Man?’ Towards a Theoretical Framework for Race in the Making of Turkishness

Drawing on critical whiteness studies, this article explores the role of race in the formation and maintenance of Turkish identity. The aim is to make connections across time (between contemporary Turkey and its past), space (placing the Turkish experience within a transnational context), and theoretical perspectives (investigating questions arising from the framework of whiteness within the context of Turkey). I argue that the literature of nationalism alone cannot illuminate the significance of racial vocabularies in early republican (1923–50) and contemporary Turkey. In criticizing current approaches that ignore the reality of race in Turkey, this article proposes a theoretical perspective in which race and whiteness emerge as a decisive component of Turkish modernity. Taking race seriously not only helps us to understand the Turkish experience of modernization but also extends theories of race. The article presents the manifestations of racial vocabularies in terms of immutability and chromatism as embedded in Turkish identity.