Anti-intellectualism and discrediting of critical academics in Turkey: an approach to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict

Serhat Tutkal
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Serhat Tutkal: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia

The Commentaries, 2022, vol. 2, issue 1, 113-128

Abstract: This essay focuses on the anti-intellectualism in Turkey in relation to the oppression, persecution, and discrediting of critical academics. It shows how this anti-intellectualism affects the reproduction and re-legitimation of war policies in regards to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. To this end, first it presents excerpts from in-depth interviews with academics who were dismissed from universities by presidential decrees for signing a peace petition criticizing the military operations and human rights violations in Kurdish-majority cities. Subsequently, it shows some Twitter entries from a larger dataset where critical academics are attacked to legitimize police violence in a university campus. It concludes with underlining the importance of re-legitimation of critical academics and intellectual work in Turkey if authoritarianism is to be overcome.

Keywords: Authoritarianism; neoliberalism; anti-intellectualism; Turkey; academia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mig:commjl:v:2:y:2022:i:1:p:113-128

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DOI: 10.33182/tc.v2i1.2856

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