Türkiye’de Farklı Olmak: Din ve Muhafazakârlık Ekseninde Ötekileştirilenler by Binnaz Toprak (review)

its promises, it is still a highly recommendable book, particularly for those who are interested in the history of popular cinema in Turkey and those looking for a general overview of the history of cinema in Turkey. Enis Dinç University of Amsterdam doi:10.2979/jottturstuass.2.2.16 Binnaz Toprak, et al Türkiye’de Farklı Olmak: Din ve Muhafazakârlık Ekseninde Ötekileştirilenler. 4th ed. Beyoğlu, Istanbul: Metis, 2012. 211 pp. 17 YTL. ISBN: 978-975-342-694-7. Conservative democracy has been associated with the government of the AKP in Turkey, and debated in several newspapers, academic journals, and books in recent years. This book can be seen as a part of this discussion, attempting to analyze baskı (pressure) felt by ötekileştirilenler (the marginalized people) as used in the book, and ötekileştirme (marginalizing) as a result of a new conservatism and the governing party’s involvement in social and moral issues. The second decade of the AKP witnesses the visibility of neglected and repressed identities more than before by the changes in the political stance of Turkey and the debates on ethnic and religious problems created by the secularization project of the Turkish Republic. However, the authors of the book, whose title can be translated into English as Being Different in Turkey: The Marginalized [People] in the Axis of Religion and Conservatism , aim to understand only the state of secular people as explained in the introductory chapter. The initial version of this book was designed as a research project supported by Açık Toplum Enstitüsü and the Scientific Research Project of Boğaziçi University, research led to many discussions on conservatism, laicism, and religion in 2009. The research was conducted from December 2007 to July 2008. The book is composed of an introduction, two main chapters and several subsections, a section of conclusion and suggestion, and an afterword written by the first author, which responds to criticism raised just after the findings of the research were released. In the introduction, the authors deliver a review of their research project, explain which methods were used while conducting the project in the twelve provinces of Turkey in different regions and why these cities were selected. They interviewed 401 participants (136 female and 265 male). The authors attempt to analyze social and political pressure on secular people, claiming that conservatism has risen in Anatolian cities. In the first chapter, the authors give voice to 440 Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, Vol. 2.2 the marginalized groups: youths, Alawites, women, the Gypsies, and the Christians of Anatolia, respectively. In the second chapter, they discuss the pressure of AKP governance on secular people, and the network of cemaat, the Gülen movement, as a strong source of conservatism in Anatolia. The findings discussed in this chapter provide some insights on understanding the recent direction of Turkish policy. It is assumed that people, who are attached to some certain laïque institutions , feel repressed, marginalized and forced to be conservative in recent years. The authors reached out to some of these institutions to select the participants : CHP provisional organizations, Kemalist associations, Eğitim-Sen, Eğitim-İş, Alawite organizations, in addition to local media organizations, women associations, universities, chambers of medicine, commerce and industry etc. The selection of the participants, identified as “purposive sample” in the book, seems problematic since the study determines who is marginalized before analyzing the so-called newly emerged authoritarianism of conservatives. Instead of understanding why the interviewed groups feel themselves different or marginalized, the authors seem to reach the conclusion that religious conservatism takes control of one’s social life, and secular people do not have much access to state services. It is emphasized that the local administrations of the party in power have a crucial role in this process. The first shortcoming of the book, therefore, is that the authors do not employ a broader approach in order to understand the patterns of marginalization in Turkey. The second shortcoming of the book is related to its methodology and the presentation of the findings. The study adopts an interpretive approach as theoretical perspective, instead of positivist paradigm, which...