On the 'undead' father of Turkey: the impossible mourning of young Atatürkists

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the discursive and non-discursive practices which are centered around Atatürk as a signifier. Based on the narrative analysis of the interviews conducted during fieldwork, it intends to adress the workings of such a signifier, as these bear a direct relationship to the political through personal and social practices of mourning. In that sense, the thesis aims to problematize the “impossible mourning” of young Ataturkists with regard to the issues of govermentality and sovereignty. For that purpose, it discusses the implications of the concept of impossible mourning in its relation with the state of exception and structural nostalgia. It investigates how Atatürk as a central category in the constitution of the political continues its hegemony over the political by operating as an empty signifier free from a stable content. In that sense, the thesis claims that Atatürk is posed as the opportunity of reaching a perfect and harmonious society and therefore being situated as the objet petit a of the political in Turkey. Following this line of thought, it argues that the way young Ataturkists fulfill the empty character of Atatürk as a signifier varies according to their subjectivization processes which lead to many different narrativizations of Atatürk. It also claims that committing to Atatürk in a mournful manner leads to understanding the current political situation as a deviation since Atatürk’s rule is understood as a Golden Age. Through the definition of “portrait effect”, it discusses the implications of Ataturk’s image in the subjectivization processes of young Ataturkists and its relation to the duty of keeping his memory ‘alive’.