Significance of localities, attraction of globalization, finding the way in-between: Hybrid cultural identities of gay men in Turkey

Abstract

This article aims to find out how gay men in Turkey construct their cultural identities under the impact of globalization, global gay culture, and global gay identity. In accordance with this aim, this study questions whether they stick to their local culture, acknowledge the cultural flows enabled by globalization and global gay culture as the way they are, or find a way between these two forming a hybrid cultural identity. Thus, by focusing on the three possible cultural identity formations; cultural differentialism, cultural convergence, and cultural hybridity, that occur as a result of the interplay between cultural identity and global flows, this study conducts semi-structured interviews with fifteen Turkish gay men. The open-ended questions are formed in order to figure out the ways they interpret globalization and global gay culture & identity, whether they are affected by it, and where they situate themselves considering the circumstances of the local and the global culture they experience. Depending on the interviews, this study concludes that gay men in Turkey embrace global gay culture as it generates positive outcomes. However, attaching a great deal of importance to their local and regarding as a way of identifying themselves, they not turn their backs on their local culture. Accordingly, making use of both the local and global while constructing their cultural identities, they regard cultural hybridization as the most plausible way out of such a dilemma.

Keywords

• Cultural Identity
• Globalization
• Local Identity
• Hybridity
• Gay Men in Turkey

References

1. Acheraïou, A. (2012). Questioning Hybridity, Postcolonialism and Globalization (Vol. 48). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
2. Altman, D. (1982). The Homosexualization of America, the Americanization of the Homosexual. New York: St. Martin's Press.
3. Altman, D. (1996). Rupture or Continuity? The Internationalization of Gay Identities. Social Text, 48, 77-94.
4. Altman, D. (1997). Global Gaze/Global Gays. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 3(4), 417-436.
5. Altman, D. (2001). Global Sex. Chicago&London: The University of Chicago Press.
6. Appadurai, A. (1999). Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. In S. During (Ed.), The Cultural Studies Reader (pp. 220-233). London, New York: Routledge.
7. Ataman, H. (2011). Less than Citizens: The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Questions in Turkey. In R. Ö. Dönmez, & P. Enneli (Eds.), Societal Peace and Ideal Citizenship for Turkey (pp. 125-159). New York: Lexington Books.
8. Barker, C. (2004). The SAGE Dictionary of Cultural Studies. London-Thousand Oaks-New Delhi: SAGE Publications.

9. Baubock, R. (1996). Cultural Minority Rights for Immigrants. The International Migration Review, 30(1), 203-250.
10. Beck, U. (2000). The Cosmopolitan Perspective: Sociology of the Second Age of Modernity. British Journal of Sociology, 51(1), 79-105.
11. Bhabha, H. (2000). On Cultural Choice. In M. Garber, B. Hanssen, & R. L. Walkowitz (Eds.), The Turn to Ethics (pp. 196-215). New York, London: Routledge.
12. Bhabha, H. K. (1994). Introduction: Locations of Culture. In H. K. Bhabha, Locations of Culture (pp. 1-19). London, New York: Routledge.
13. Billig, M. (1995). Banal Nationalism. London: Sage Publications.
14. Binnie, J. (2004). The Globalization of Sexuality. London: Sage Publications.
15. Bolat, D. (2016). Zorunlu Heteroseksüellik ve Türkiye Muhalefet Alanı Üzerine Bir Tartışma. Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi, 71(4), 1091-1117.
16. Boratav, H. B., Fişek, G. O., & Ziya, H. E. (2014). Unpacking Masculinities in the Context of Social Change: Internal Complexities of the Identities of Married Men in Turkey. Men and Masculinities, 17(3), 299-324.
17. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of A Theory of Practice. (E. Gellner, J. Goody, S. Gudeman, M. Herzfeld, J. Parry, Eds., & R. Nice, Trans.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
18. Çakırlar, C., & Delice, S. (2012). Giriş: Yerel ile Küresel Arasında Türkiye'de Cinsellik, Kültür ve Toplumsallık. In C. Çakırlar, & S. Delice (Eds.), Cinsellik Muamması: Türkiye'de Queer Kültür ve Muhalefet (pp. 11-37). İstanbul: Metis.
19. Castells, M. (2010). The Power of Identity (2nd ed.). West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
20. Clifford, J. (2008). Travelling Cultures. In T. S. Oakes, & P. L. Price (Eds.), The Cultural Geography Reader (pp. 316-325). London, New York: Routledge.
21. Cruz-Malave, A., & Manalansan, M. F. (2002). Introduction: Dissident Sexualities/Alternative Globalism. In A. Cruz-Malavé, & M. F. Manalansan (Eds.), Queer Globalizations: Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism (pp. 1-13). New York, London: New York University Press.
22. D’Emilio, J. (1993). Capitalism and Gay Identity. In H. Abelove, M. A. Barale, & D. M. Halperin (Eds.), The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader (pp. 467-476). New York: Routledge.
23. Giddens, A. (1990). The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford: Polity Press.
24. Gordon, M. (2000). Global Culture/Individual Identity: Searching for Home in Cultural Supermarket. London, New York: Routledge.
25. Hall, S. (1992a). The Question of Cultural Identity. In Modernity and Its Futures (pp. 273-327). Cambridge: Polity Press.
26. Hall, S. (1992b). The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power. In Formations of Modernity (pp. 276-314). Oxford.
27. Hall, S. (1994). Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In P. Williams, & L. Chrisman (Eds.), Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader (pp. 227-237). London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
28. Hall, S. (1996). Introduction: Who Needs 'Identity'? In S. Hall, & P. Du Gay (Eds.), Questions of Identity (pp. 1-18). London: Sage Publications.
29. Hall, S. (1997a). Introduction. In S. Hall (Ed.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (pp. 1-13). London, New Delhi: Sage Publications.
30. Hall, S. (1997b). The Work of Representation. In S. Hall (Ed.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (pp. 13-75). London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi.
31. Hawley, J. C. (Ed.). (2001). Postcolonial, Queer: Theoretical Intersections. Albany: State University of New York Press.
32. Heckathorn, D. D. (1997). Respondent-Driven Sampling: A New Approach to the Study of Hidden Populations. Social Problem, 44(2), 174-200.
33. Herek, G. M. (1990). The Context of Anti-Gay Violence Notes on Cultural and Psychological Heterosexism. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 5(3), 316-333.
34. Horowitz, D. L. (2000). Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkley: University of California Press.
35. Kandiyoti, D. (1995). Patterns of Patriarchy: Notes for an Analysis of Male Dominance in Turkish Society. In Ş. Tekelli (Ed.), Women in Modern Turkish Society: A Reader (pp. 306-318). London: Zed Books.
36. King, K. (2002). "There Are No Lesbians Here": Lesbianisms, Fenisnism, and Global Gay Formations. In A. Cruz-Malavé, & M. F. Manalansan (Eds.), Queer Globalizations: Citizenship and the Afterlife of Colonialism (pp. 33-49). New York: New York University Press.
37. Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics . London: Verso.
38. Martel, F. (2018). Global Gay: How Gay Culture Is Changing the World. (P. Baudoin, Trans.) Cambridge: MIT Press.
39. Massad, J. A. (2002). Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab. Public Culture, 14(2), 361-385.
40. Melucci, A. (2015). Identity and Difference in a Globalised World. In P. Werbner, & T. Mood (Eds.), Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multicultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-Racism (pp. 58-70). London: Zen Books.
41. Mercer, J. (2007). The Challenges of Insider Research in Educational Institutions: Wielding a Double‐Edged Sword and Resolving Delicate Dilemmas. Oxford Review of Education, 33(1), 1-17.
42. Muñoz, J. (1999). Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
43. Özbay, C. (2015). Same-Sex Sexualities in Turkey. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Vol. 20, pp. 870–874). Oxford: Elsevier.
44. Öztürk, M. B. (2011). Sexual Orientation Discrimination: Exploring the Experiences of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Employees in Turkey. Human Relations, 64(8), 1099-1118.
45. Öztürk, Y., & Baykan, A. (2022). Negotiating Cultural Identity Among Gay Men in Turkey: From Belonging to Becoming Strangers, to the Diaspora of Global Gay. RumeliDE Journal of Language and Literature Studies, 28, 532-548. doi:10.29000/rumelide.1132596
46. Phillips, O. (2000). Constituting the Global Gay: Issues of Individual Subjectivity and Sexuality in Southern Africa. In C. Stychin, & D. Herman (Eds.), Sexuality in the Legal Arena (pp. 17-35). London: The Athlone Press.
47. Pieterse, J. N. (2009). Globalization and Culture: Global Melange. Lanham: Rowman&Littlefield Publishers.
48. Plummer, K. (2003). Speaking its Name: Creating a Gay and Lesbian Studies. In K. Plummer (Ed.), Modern Homosexualities: Fragments of Lesbian and Gay Experience (pp. 3-29). London: Routledge.
49. Ritzer, G. (2011). Sociological Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies.
50. Robertson, R. (1998). Globalization : Social Theory and Global Culture Theory, Culture & Society. London: Sage Publications, Inc.
51. Sedgwick, E. K. (1993). Tendencies. Durham: Duke University Press.
52. Tomlinson, J. (2003). Globalization and Cultural Identity. In D. Held, & A. McGrew (Eds.), The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate (pp. 269-278). Cambridge: Polity Press.
53. Weeks, J. (2000). Making Sexual History. Cambridge: Polity Press.
54. Weeks, J. (2011). The Languages of Sexuality. London and New York: Routledge.
55. Weiss, M. L., & Bosia, M. J. (Eds.). (2013). Global Homophobia: States, Movements, and the Politics of Oppression. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
56. Wesling, M. (2008). Why Queer Diaspora? Feminist Review, 90, 30-47.
57. Young, I. M. (1990). Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.