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

Öz

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 Fallers’ work, which has mostly remained unpublished due to his early death, is analyzed by relying on the archives deposited in the Chicago University library and on oral history interviews conducted by the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.

Anahtar Kelimeler

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

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

Öz

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.

Anahtar Kelimeler

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

Kaynakça

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