The Problem of Modernity and Identity in Turkey

What does a study of modernity, not from the point ofview of official or high discourses or from the real conditions, but from the point of view of carnivalesque forms of popular culture tell us? Howdo the representations in low discourses articulatethe power relations taken place in modern urbanspace? Humour magazines in Turkey, far from beingjust an escapist form of entertainment, have a longhistory and almost always politically charged. Astudy of popular humour magazines in Turkey shows usboth how the official-dominant discourses aredemystified and subverted but also the way the powerstruggles operate through tastes, sexualities andgendered bodies. This study through an analysis ofthe representations of a popular humour magazine inthe early 1990 s context, shows that under the mainoverriding theme of the duality of essence and appearance , modernity is signified as amasquerade and a stake in the power struggles. Andbodies, sexuality and masculinity become the nodalpoints and main spaces through which not only ofidentity struggles of the social groups but also ofTurkish nation are represented.... Mehr