Antropolog Lloyd A. Fallers’ın 1960’lardaki Türkiye Çalışmaları

Year 2023, Volume: 29 Issue: 116, 1129 - 1150, 02.11.2023

Ali Sipahi

https://doi.org/10.22559/folklor.2485

Abstract

Antropoloji disiplini Soğuk Savaş dönemi Amerikan sosyal bilimlerinin temel
yapıtaşı olan modernleşme paradigmasının etkisiyle 1950’lerden itibaren ilgi odağına
ilkel toplumların yanı sıra gelişmekte olan ulus-devletleri de dahil etmeye başlamıştı.
Bu bağlamda, dönemin siyaset bilimi literatüründe özgün bir demokrasi örneği
olarak görülen Türkiye Batılı antropologların analiz nesnesi olmaya aday ‘yeni
ulus’lardan biriydi. Böylece Amerikan antropoloji tarihinde ilk defa 1960’larda bir
seri Türkiye etnografileri ortaya çıktı. Bu yeni yönelimin yoğunlaştığı kurum ise
Chicago Üniversitesi Antropoloji Bölümü’ydü. Bu makale, Chicago’da antropoloji
profesörü olan Lloyd A. Fallers’ın akademik portresini ve Türkiye çalışmalarını
gün ışığına çıkarmaktadır. Fallers on yıldan uzun bir süre Türkiye üzerine çalışmış,
toplamda iki yıl Türkiye’de yaşayarak derinlikli alan araştırması yapmış ve doktora
tezlerine danışmanlık yapmıştır. Erken ölümü sebebiyle Türkiye araştırması
büyük ölçüde yayınlanmamış kalan Fallers’ın çalışmaları, Chicago Üniversitesi
kütüphanesinde korunan arşivlere ve yazarın Fallers’ı tanımış olan kişilerle yaptığı
sözlü tarih görüşmelerine dayanarak analiz edilmiştir.

Keywords

antropoloji tarihi, Lloyd A. Fallers, soğuk savaş, siyasal hayat, kasaba

Anthropologist Lloyd A. Fallers’ Research in Turkey during the 1960s

Abstract

Due to the influence of the modernization paradigm, as the main axis of the
American social sciences during the Cold War, and since the 1950s, the field
of anthropology has shown interest in the developing nation-states in addition
to primitive societies. Within this context, Turkey was one of the ‘new nations’ to
become a potential object of analysis for Western anthropologists as Turkey
was already praised as an exemplary democracy in the political science literature.
As a result, for the first time in the history of American anthropology, a series of
ethnographies pertaining to Turkey were generated in the 1960s. This article brings
to light the academic portrait of the anthropology professor Lloyd A. Fallers at
Chicago University and his studies on Turkey. Fallers worked on Turkey for more than ten
years, did long-term fieldwork during his residences in Turkey for a total of two
years, and supervised dissertations about Turkey. Fallers’ work, which has mostly
remained unpublished due to his early death, is analyzed by relying on the archives
deposited in the Chicago University library and on oral history interviews conducted
by the author with people who had known Fallers.

Keywords

history of anthropology, Lloyd A.Fallers, cold war, politikal life, town

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