The Turkishness Contract

with Barış Ünlü

hosted by Chris Gratien and Kubra Sagir

| What does it mean to be Turkish? In this episode, we examine that question with sociologist Barış Ünlü. In The Turkishness Contract, Ünlü studies the historical process by which Turkishness develop through a contractual relationship between the state and its citizens. In our conversation, we explore the late Ottoman roots of this process, as well as how the experiences of religious and ethnolinguistic groups shed light onto the often unspoken and unconscious behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs that govern Turkishness. We also discuss the book's wide reception in Turkish and how in its new English translation, Ünlü connects the Turkish experience to global perspectives on race and belonging in the modern world.   

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What does it mean to be Turkish? In this episode, we examine that question with sociologist Barış Ünlü. In The Turkishness Contract, Ünlü studies the historical process by which Turkishness develop through a contractual relationship between the state and its citizens. In our conversation, we explore the late Ottoman roots of this process, as well as how the experiences of religious and ethnolinguistic groups shed light onto the often unspoken and unconscious behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs that govern Turkishness. We also discuss the book's wide reception in Turkish and how in its new English translation, Ünlü connects the Turkish experience to global perspectives on race and belonging in the modern world.

Contributor Bios

	Barış Ünlü is Assistant Professor, General Faculty, in the Department of Sociology at the University of Virginia. His latest book is Frantz Fanon: Sömürge Düşünürü - Sömürge Devrimcisi. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2025.
	Chris Gratien is Associate Professor of History at University of Virginia, where he teaches classes on global environmental history and the Middle East. His first book, The Unsettled Plain: An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Frontier, explores the social and environmental transformation of the Adana region of Southern Turkey during the 19th and 20th century.
	Kubra Sagir is a PhD student in the Department of History at the University of Virginia. Her work focuses on the international dimensions of the Kurdish question in the twentieth century.

Credits

Episode No. 582
Release Date: 16 March 2026
Recording Location: University of Virginia
Sound production by Chris Gratien. Intro music by Korg Entertainer Keyboard. Interlude music by A.A. Aalto and closing music by Kara Güneş.
Bibliography courtesy of Barış Ünlü

Further Listening

	Erdem Sönmez	538 3/13/23	Hayrullah Efendi'den Türk-İslam Sentezine Türkiye'de Tarihyazımı ve Tarihçilik
	Perin Gürel	573 10/31/25	Türkiye, Iran, and the Politics of Comparison
	Aslı Iğsız	189 4/3/15	Cultural Policy and Branding in Turkey
	Suzy Hansen	386 10/15/18	America, Turkey, and the Middle East
	Sara Rahnama	341 1/17/18	Hats and Hijabs in Algeria and Turkey
	Emmanuel Szurek	290 1/4/17	The Politics of Turkish Language Reform
	Hikmet Kocamaner	358 4/17/18	Politics of the Family in the New Turkey

Further Reading

Frankenberg, Ruth. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.

Kumar, Krishan. “Empires and Nations: Convergence or Divergence?.” in Sociology and Empire: The Imperial Entanglements of a Discipline, edited by George Steinmetz, 279-299. Durham: Duke University Press, 2013.

Mamdani, Mahmood. Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020.

Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.

Pateman, Carole. The Sexual Contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. 

Sharma, Nandita. Home Rule: National Sovereignty and the Separation of Natives and Migrants. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020.

Ünlü, Barış. “İsmail Beşikçi Fenomeni: Bir Parrhesiastes’in Oluşumu.” In İsmail Beşikçi, edited by Barış Ünlü and Ozan Değer, 11-44. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2011.

Wimmer, Andreas. “Why Nationalism Works and Why it isn’t Going Away.” Foreign Affairs 98, no. 2 (March-April 2019): 27-35.