Paper short abstract:

With the help of ethnographic data, collected from Southeast Turkey, this paper focuses on the relation between collective memory on war and the contemporary economic structures and classes.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to provide a historical frame for understanding how the periods of wars are remembered and interpreted during peace. Militarism, trauma and violence, which are usually associated with the "extraordinary periods" of humanity, that is to say the wars, are also in charge during peacetime. Thus, the very idea of "war" becomes an "empty signifier", which mobilizes social groups and help nation-states to regulate societies. In this paper, I focus on the relation between a "war trauma" and local entrepreneurial spirit in Southeast Turkey, a region connoting "poverty" and "ethnic conflicts" in contemporary Turkey. The empirical template, which I will pursue my theoretical discussion is a newly emerging industrial centre in the region, namely Antep. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, Southeast Turkey became the arena of various local organizations and armed bands resisting to French and English troops. Antep resistance became the symbol of this struggle. The various and conflicted interpretations of the armed resistance continue to shape the urban space and local identities but more importantly they constitute a basis for the local entrepreneurial circles to connect to neoliberal order and legitimize their presence in urban economy.

With the help of in-depth interviews, I sketch how the business circles of Antep "remember" the resistance after WWI and associate their class identifications and local entrepreneurial spirit with the trauma of war. Such an inquiry reveals insightful data regarding not only social memory but also its relation with militarism, nationalism and class.