Küreselleşmenin Öntarihi: Hareket Halindeki Çerkes Kimliği [Prehistories of Globalisation: Circassian Identity in Motion]

Abstract

This article through a closer look at an emergent notion that might be called the prehistory of globalization will focus on how the pasts of one small diasporic group, the Circassians, act upon their present engagements with globality and the ways in which they experience a newly accessible homeland in the North Caucasus. In looking at the linkages between Circassian pasts and presents, mobility and migration emerge clearly as a constitutive element of Circassian identity. To explore the relationship between motion and identity the author juxtaposes two texts from different time-spaces. The first is an ethnographic text narrating a journey undertaken by a Circassian woman in 1993 from diaspora to homeland, from Turkey to the Caucasus. The second is an historical text dating from 1854 and documenting the journey of a Circassian woman from homeland to slavery, from the Caucasus to Egypt. The unexpected divergences, convergences, and counterintuitive insights illuminated by the juxtaposition illustrate the changing trajectories of migration, memory, and imagination. They help assess the utility of prehistory as a conceptual link between past and present and reveal the profoundly gendered nature of globalization and its pasts.

Keywords

• prehistory,migration,return,slavery,globalisation

Küreselleşmenin Öntarihi: Hareket Halindeki Çerkes Kimliği [Prehistories of Globalisation: Circassian Identity in Motion]

Abstract

Küreselleşme teriminin tanımı üzerindeki muğlaklık tamamen giderilemese de, onun işaret ettiği süreçlere dair dünyada genel bir hemfikirliğin olduğunu söyleyebiliriz. Alternatif moderniteleri, kültürel melezliği, ticari malların dolaşımını, ulusaşırı göçleri yada kimlik siyasetini anlamaya çalışırken Küreselleşme teorisi aslında geleceğe bakar. Lineerlik, teleoloji ve öngörülebilirlik kavramlarını bir yana bırakarak yeni binyılın nasıl şekilleneceğini anlamaya çalışır. Devinim ve kimlik arasındaki ilişkiyi anlamak için farklı zaman dilimlerinden iki metni yanyana getirerek analiz edeceğim. Bunların ilki, 1993 yılında bir Çerkes kadınının diasporadan anavatanına -Türkiye’den Kafkasya’ya- yaptığı seyahati anlatan etnografik bir metin. İkincisi ise, 1854’de yazılmış olan ve bir Çerkes kadınının anavatanından köleliğe –Kafkasya’dan Mısır’a, yaptığı yolculuğu anlatan tarihsel bir metin. Bu metinlerin karşılaştırmalı analizinin ortya koyduğu beklenmedik ayrılıklar ve biraraya gelmeler, ve tahmin edilmesi zor kavrayışlar göç, hafıza ve tahayyül gibi kavramların değişken hallerini gösterir. Bu kavramlar, Öntarih‘in (prehistory) geçmiş ile bugün arasında kavramsal bir bağ kurmak ve küreselleşme ve onun geçmişlerinin çarpıcı şekilde cinsiyetçi olduğunu göstermek açısından kullanışlı bir nosyon olup olmadığını anlamamıza yardım ederler.

 

Keywords

• küreselleşme,kadın,Çerkes,ön-tarih

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