Researcher: Can, Başak Bulut
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Can, Başak Bulut
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Publication Metadata only How does a protest last? rituals of visibility, disappearances under custody, and the Saturday Mothers in Turkey(Wiley, 2022) N/A; Can, Başak Bulut; Faculty Member; N/A; 219278Organizing weekly silent sit-in protests since the mid-1990s, the families of the disappeared created Turkey's longest-lasting civil disobedience movement, known as the Saturday Mothers. Ritualizing their resistance, the group maintained the feeling of solidarity among its participants, attracted spectators, and ensured public visibility. Yet, as this protest form became popular, the participants felt uncomfortable with how they were represented in the wider public, especially how they were reduced to the spectacle of suffering in official and popular discourses. Thus, they often found themselves grappling with the tension between their desire to become visible and their refusal to be represented as a public spectacle of mothers' suffering. Rather than solely focusing on material and spiritual resources of the movement, activists' meaning-making processes, or the state's tactics to end the movement, this article introduces the analytics of ritual and spectacle to highlight the ongoing negotiations between protestors' subjectivity, collective action, popular representations of the protest, and state violence. The productive tension between ritualized protest and its spectacularized lives suggests a need to revise anthropological theories about progressive social movements that juxtapose the hidden versus public, the individual versus collective, and the institutionalized versus spontaneous forms of resistance.Publication Metadata only Ethnographic research at the intersections of everyday life, power relations and ethical codes(Hacettepe Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi, 2017) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Can, Başak Bulut; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219278Ethnographic research aims to understand people's relation to all aspects of life including nature, culture, things, imagination and practice on their own terms. This research method is based on a long-term and intimate relationship between researcher and researched. This intimate relationship, which is based on trust brings about a number of ethical problems. This article first of all looks at the rise of ethical codes in human subject research and the influence of institutionalization of ethical rules on ethnographic research in the last three decades. These debates show the limits of ethical codes in ethnographic method and raise questions about how ethnographic research, which revolve around everyday life, engages with the questions of politics and ethics. The second part of the article deals with the ethical questions in ethnographic research in Turkey. The last part briefly discusses the fact that recently more ethnographic researches address questions about the ethical life. / Öz: Etnografik araştırma insanların doğayla, kültürle, nesnelerle, hayal gücüyle, pratikle yani yaşamın tüm alanlarıyla ilişkilerini onların kendi terimleriyle anlamaya çalışır. Bu araştırma yöntemi, araştırılan ve araştırmacı arasında uzun süreli ve yakın bir ilişkiye dayanmaktadır. Bu güvene dayalı yakın ilişki pek çok etik sorunu da beraberinde getirir. Bu yazıda insan araştırmalarında uyulması gereken etik kritelerin ortaya çıkışına ve özellikle son 30 yılda bu kuralların hızla kurumsallaşmasının etnografik araştırmalar üzerindeki etkisine bakılacaktır. Bu tartışmalar bir yandan etnografik yönteme ilişkin etik kodların sınırlarını gösterirken bir yandan da gündelik hayattaki ilişkileri merkezine alan etnografik araştırmaların daha genel politik ve etik meselelerle nasıl ilişkileneceğine dair soruları ortaya çıkarır. Yazının ikinci kısmı Türkiye'de etnografik araştırmalarda etik soruları nasıl düşünebileceğimizle ilgilidir. Sonuç bölümünde ise etnografik araştırmaların giderek etik yaşamla ilgili sorulara yöneliyor oluşuyla ilgili kısa bir tartışma yer almaktadır.Publication Metadata only Human rights, humanitarianism, and state violence: medical documentation of torture in Turkey(Wiley, 2016) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Can, Başak Bulut; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219278State authorities invested in developing official expert discourses and practices to deny torture in post-1980 coup d''etat Turkey. Documentation of torture was therefore crucial for the incipient human rights movement there in the 1980s. Human rights physicians used their expertise not only to treat torture victims but also to document torture and eventually found the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) in 1990. Drawing on an ethnographic and archival research at the HRFT, this article examines the genealogy of anti-torture struggles in Turkey and argues that locally mediated intimacies and/or hostilities between victims of state violence, human rights physicians, and official forensics reveal the limitations of certain universal humanitarian and human rights principles. It also shows that locally mediated long-term humanitarian encounters around the question of political violence challenge forensic denial of violence and remake the legitimate levels of state violence.Publication Metadata only The criminalization of physicians and the delegitimization of violence in Turkey(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2016) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Can, Başak Bulut; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219278In June 2013, protests that erupted in Gezi Park in Istanbul, Turkey were met with state violence, mobilizing hundreds of native physicians to deliver emergency medical care. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in makeshift clinics during these protests, interviews with Gezi physicians and analyses of recent laws restricting emergency care provision, in this article I explore the criminalization of clinical practice through legal and coercive means of the government and the delegitimization of state violence through clinical and expert witnessing practices of physicians. As I show, material, legal, and discursive articulations of the idiom of medical neutrality revolve around the tension between medical praxis as neutrality and medical praxis as political participation. I offer a reconsideration of medical humanitarian and human rights regimes in terms of their consequences for inciting, documenting and restricting state violence.Publication Metadata only Tıbbi antropoloji niçin önemlidir?(Türk Tabipler Birliği, 2017) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Can, Başak Bulut; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219278Drawing upon ethnographic research on menopause and intersexuality, this article points out the importance of awareness brought about by medical anthropology for developing better ways of medical treatment and diagnosis. Two findings of this literature are highlighted: 1) Human biology is far from having universal qualities as imagined in modern medicine, on the contrary it is subject to diff erentiation due to environmental, historical and cultural circumstances. This is why, it is important to think of biology in terms of its locality. 2) Modern medicine is not produced in a vacuum, rather it is a product of the interaction of multiple actors, technologies and bodies in a certain place and time. Therefore, doctors are always infl uenced by various prejudices and norms of the society that they are living in. Being aware of these points might contribute to the realization of a better medical training, more objective medical knowledge production and a better treatment process. / Öz: Bu yazı, menopoz ve çift cinsiyetlilik üzerine yapılmış etnografik çalışmalardan hareketle tıbbi antropolojinin getirdiği farkındalıkların daha iyi tıbbi teşhis ve tedavi yollarının geliştirilmesi için önemine işaret etmektedir. Bu araştırmalardaki iki bulgunun altı çizilmektedir. 1) İnsan biyolojisi modern tıbbın hayal ettiği evrensellikten uzaktır, tam tersine çevresel, tarihsel ve kültürel koşullar içinde sürekli farklılaşır. O yüzden biyolojileri yerellikleri üzerinden düşünmek önemlidir. 2) Modern tıp boşlukta üretilmez, aksine pek çok aktörün, teknolojinin ve bedenin belli bir mekan ve zaman içindeki etkileşiminin sonucudur. Dolayısıyla doktorlar, içinde yaşadıkları toplumlardaki çeşitli önyargı ve normlardan etkilenirler. Tıbbi antropoloji getirdiği bu farkındalıklarla daha iyi bir tıp eğitiminin, daha nesnel tıbbi bilgi üretiminin ve daha iyi bir tedavi sürecinin gerçekleşmesine katkıda bulunabilirPublication Metadata only Turkey's failed coup as an 'ongoing media event' and the formation of public affect(Sage Publications Ltd, 2019) Department of Media and Visual Arts; Department of Sociology; Department of Media and Visual Arts; Department of Sociology; Bulut, Ergin; Can, Başak Bulut; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279; 219278Following the coup attempt in Turkey, former Gulenists made appearances on various television channels and disclosed intimate and spectacular information regarding their past activities. We ask: what is the political work of these televised disclosures? In answering this question, we situate the coup within the media event literature and examine the intimate work of these televised disclosures performed as part of a media event. The disclosures we examine were extremely spectacular statements that worked to reconstruct a highly divided and polarized society through an intimate language. Consequently, these television performances had two functions: ideological and affective. First, these disclosures and television shows chose to foreground sensation and therefore mystified the illegal networks that historically prepared the coup. Second, using a language of regret and apology, these disclosures aimed to teach the audience how to be purified and good citizens through a mediated, pedagogical relationship. Within the vulnerable context of a hegemonic crisis, these disclosures intended to form their own publics where citizens were invited to sympathize with those who made mistakes in the past, ultimately aiming to create national unity and reconciliation.Publication Metadata only The (non)denial of torture, human rights and medical expertise(Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2020) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Can, Başak Bulut; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219278This chapter addresses the issue of documenting state violence with a focus on the limitations of using forensic and amedical evidence in relation to human rights violations. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research into the documentation of state violence in Turkey, the chapter examines two case studies of state violence from the 1980s and the post-2014 Turkey to show how the use, misuse or non-use of forensic and medical evidence is carried out within the broader political climate in Turkey. The chapter shows that first the power of medical evidence to deny or prove torture allegations deteriorates as punishment-as-spectacle against the insurgent is normalized and tolerated with the help of legal framework. Second, the widespread use of medical and scientific expert knowledge has made human rights more dependent on the existing legal and bureaucratic framework rendering it all the more difficult to raise substantial and political questions about state violence.Publication Metadata only Starve and immolate: the politics of human weapons(Cambridge Univ Press, 2015) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Can, Başak Bulut; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219278N/APublication Metadata only Researchers’ vulnerability: the politics of research in official clinical settings in Turkey(Wiley-Blackwell, 2020) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Can, Başak Bulut; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219278[No abstract available]Publication Metadata only Media, affect, and authoritarian futures in "new Turkey:" spectacular confessions on television in the post-coup era(Oxford University Press Inc, 2020) Department of Media and Visual Arts; Department of Sociology; Department of Media and Visual Arts; Department of Sociology; Bulut, Ergin; Can, Başak Bulut; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219279; 219278A spectacular shock doctrine is reformatting Turkey since the failed coup in July 2016. We examine how the television economy transformed the organization behind the coup (FETO) from a public secret into a spectacle. We investigate the televised confessions of former Gulenists, who revealed the scandalous FETO's inner workings live on television. We argue that former Gulenists' media performances based on confession, apology, and spectacular secrecy captured public affect to justify their complicity with the putschists rather than bringing political justice. The government capitalized on these confessions as part of its strategic information warfare to tame the opposition after the coup, while reconstructing Gulenists as a weird cult rather than a political network. As the citizens were bombarded with affective televisual confessions, politicians secured authoritarian futures without a glimpse of justice, because these shows spectacularly erased the networks behind the coup.