Abstract
New Desires, New Selves is a sociological window into the sexual attitudes of Turkish youth through a cohort of 87 students from Bogazici University (a public institution in Istanbul) interviewed between 2002 and 2006. As Ozyegin asserts, the subjects represent a range of backgrounds, political persuasions, and levels of religiosity (though non-Muslims and ethnic minorities are conspicuously absent). However, calling Bogazici students, who are among the top in the country, and many of whom come from well-to-do families, representative of Turkish youth is akin to calling Harvard students representative of American youth. The students were between the ages of 18 and 24 when they were interviewed, rendering them in their late 20s to late 30s at the time of publication (hardly youth, with some approaching middle-age). Nevertheless, Ozyegin argues that this cohort is worth examining because as young ‘upwardly mobile,’ ‘neoliberal,’ and ‘self-fashioning’ Turks negotiating community/family expectations and individual/personal identities, they embody the ‘profound tension’ and ‘fractured desires’ of their deeply patriarchal and paternalistic society (p. 3).
In a rapidly developing country like Turkey, where paradigm shifts in attitudes towards gender, sexuality and religion can occur in half a generation, data that was between 9 to 13 years old at the time of publication—and even older now—is not only outdated, but also troubling in other ways. A decade is a lifetime for this sort of empirical, non-longitudinal study; consequently, the in-depth interviews, field data, representative surveys, participant observation, and focus group research that was also conducted is at most only a limited reflection of the years 2002 to 2006. Unlike the students interviewed, today’s Turkish youth cannot remember being governed by a political party other than the current ruling party—the conservative, Islamic AKP—which has been in power, and exerting increasing social and cultural influence, since 2002. Thus presenting data obtained just as this party was gaining a foothold in national politics as ‘current’ and therefore reflective of changes in contemporary Turkey is highly problematic. It also illustrates the issues that can arise when studying a nation that is in constant flux: data can very rapidly become irrelevant, and can at any moment be shaped by the ever-changing political tide. In recent years, events such as the Gezi Park protest (2013) and the attempted coup of 2016 have dramatically altered the ideological landscape of the country and attitudes towards just about everything, especially among Turkish youth.
While the author tries to remedy this situation in her conclusions by considering AKP’s impact over the past decade and the immediate outcome of Gezi Park, it falls flat and unconvincing, as does her overreliance on neoliberalism as a theoretical concept, her elision of the influence of religious cults (the Gulen Movement and others) on pious students, and her depiction of the former headscarf ban in universities and the public sector as if it still exists. Chapter three begins with an account of the ban at Bogazici University, written in the present tense (probably in the mid-2000s); however, the ban was lifted and headscarves were permitted on campuses during the 2008–2009 academic year, long before Ozyegin revised her manuscript for publication in 2013. Equally alarming is her rationalization for not including devout Muslim men and lesbians in her study. The former, she expresses, would not talk to her, a woman and an outsider (from the College of William and Mary) asking intimate and personal questions about gender and sexuality. It is implied that a lack of trust, and the investigator’s age and sex, most likely prevented her from eliciting personal stories and opinions from this group. One wonders why (male) Bogazici University faculty members or research assistants with a rapport with students were unable to assist her with interviewing devout Muslim men.
Ozyegin’s reason for excluding lesbians from the study is perhaps even more astonishing: four of her six taped interviews were damaged while going through airport security (p. 6). While at the time the interviews were conducted, Skype and the social media were in their infancy, email was certainly widespread and could have been used to elicit feedback (the methodological conventionality is palpable in this work). Moreover, her research assistants on the ground could have re-interviewed the women, or found new students willing to participate. Relegating lesbians to a vignette or two severely undermines this study of sexuality, rendering it exclusively an examination of heterosexual men, (religious) heterosexual women and gay-identifying men (other non-heteronormative/gender non-conforming individuals are also absent).
Nevertheless, this work provides insight into a very specific group of Turkish youths’ attitudes concerning gender, sexuality, romance and religion during a very narrow slice of time before the consolidation of AKP power. Moreover, the four chapters that comprise this work—on female virginity, masculinity, female piety, and male homosexuality—have their worthwhile moments: the second chapter, for example, is notable for its analysis of Turkish masculinity, while chapter four presents an interesting examination of Turkish gay culture. However, it is through its shortcomings that New Desires, New Selves suggests the kind of work that still needs to be done in this area.