“The scientist the nation needs:” Early Cold War era characterizations of Turkey and Turkish scientists

• In Event: National Identities and Transnational Science and Technology during the 20th Century: Cold War

Abstract

While STS scholars have produced much work on the ways in which science and scientists are represented in public discourse, the links between such representations and the imaginations of the nation have not been studied as closely. In this paper I focus on the case of early Cold War era Turkey and illustrate how the debate on the qualities of the “Turkish scientist” that emerged in this period was part of a broader debate about the role that Turkey should play in the world and in its region.
Using archival material, memoirs, and media accounts, I discuss the ways in which Turkish scientists were represented by different groups in the 1950s and the early 1960s, and show how these representations were consistently related to the ways in which scientists’ identities as members of the Turkish nation were conceptualized. US experts commonly imagined Turkey as a potential leader for the Middle East, but considered that Turkish scientists needed to adopt “American” attitudes and methods to truly contribute to their nation’s transformation in this respect. Turkish scientists who became members of transnational scientific networks through their activites in NATO- and US-sponsored programs, saw themselves as the “good citizens” that Turkey needed for its development, but complained that their contributions were not appreciated by their nation. Critics, however, constructed a discourse that represented Turkish scientists as alienated from the nation and its traditions due to foreign influence, and as weakening, rather than strengthening Turkey’s chances of becoming a leader for the Middle East.

Author

• Mehmet Alper Yalcinkaya, Ohio Wesleyan University