Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
SOCIAL SCIENCE INFORMATION SUR LES SCIENCES SOCIALES, cilt.53, sa.2, ss.197-212, 2014 (SSCI)
This article offers a new conceptualization of the multiple modernities debate by analyzing the relationship of Islamic conservatism to modernity. I argue that in post-1980 Turkey 'modernity' was re-interpreted, giving ever more emphasis to capitalism and to the Islamic societal self-understanding at the expense of commitment to autonomy, to critique and self-questioning, to gender equality, and so on. I pose the question whether this is still an interpretation of modernity or does it deviate so much from the basic definition of modernity that it should be considered something else. First, I consider the limits to the openness of modernity to interpretation in an attempt to understand whether a 'cultural theory of modernity' suffices as explicandum. Initially I consider the essentially changing relationship both within and between Turkish society and the state, and relate these changes to the discussions concerning the relations between modernity and multiplicity. I then demonstrate that recent occurrences in Turkey illustrate the corruption of modernity, in contrast to the assumptions that view contemporary Turkey as an Islamic-capitalist variety of modernity.