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Paper short abstract:

This presentation is a study of macroregional imaginaries of Turkish students in 2022 based on an online mapping survey conducted in three university cities. It focuses on students’ representations and practices of macroregions they feel they belong to.

Paper long abstract:

This proposal is a study of macroregional imaginaries of Turkish students in 2022 with approaches in political geography and geography of representations. The analysis is based on an online mapping survey conducted through students in three university cities. It focuses on students’ representations and practices of macroregions they feel they belong to. We seek to analyze imaginaries associated to a region of the world thanks to mental maps linked to a panel of questions that interrogate socio-demographic and geographic factors.

By focusing on their macroregion, we propose to ask two main questions: what regional spaces and what scales of representation are meaningful to define the part of the world they belong to? How the current geopolitical situation might influence the positioning of their country among the regional spaces at stake in Turkish representations?

A previous test phase of that survey conducted in 2021 in Isparta gives exploratory results that will be detailed with the next phase. It has shown that Turkish students represent their region of belonging mainly at the scale of their country: more than 90% of responses includes Turkey following its frontiers. Largest representations include Caucasus, Western parts of Iran, the Black Sea region or the Balkans in less than 30% of responses. Names given to those macroregion also reveal two main scales at stake: the state scale and the macroregional scale with four area mentioned (Asia, Europe, Eurasia, Middle East). Geographical images of an in-between position with those area appear as structuring (“bridge” or “middle”).