This thesis aims to understand the formation of the Russian identity in the Kazakh Steppes by examining the migration flows of Russians and the affects of state policies and pattern of inter-ethnic relations between the Russians and the Kazakhs during different historical periods. Constructionist theoryhas guided the analysis of the research. The Russian identity formation in the Kazakh Steppes is examined within the contextof three consequtive historical periods that correspond to fundamental social, political and administartive re-structuring. Firstis the period of the Russiam Empire, during which the resettlement policy of the Empire shattered the traditional social structures of the native Kazakhs and entailed extensive inter-ethnic contact between the Russians and the Kazakhs. Second period corresponds to the period of the Soviet Union, which experianced the intensification of Russian settelments in the Kazakh Steppes. The soviet policy, while encouraging Russianness as a component of soviet identity, atthe same time, granted autonomy todiverse ethnic entites. The third period, which correspondes to the current era starting with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, witnessed the emergance of Kazakh State. A large portion of the Russian population in the Kazakh Steppes remained in the independent republic of Kazakhstan and face a new challenges in tearms of identity formation due to the Kazakh nation building policies.

The aim of this study is to uncover and discuss the spaces appropriated by graffiti writers and to reveal out the possible resistances involved in the act throughout the writers&amp / #8217 / motivations, characteristics, spaces they produce and all over process they are entering into together with the specifications of graffiti in Turkey. It demands to unfold the possibilities sheltered in everyday practices looking through graffiti and subsequently revealing out possibilities in graffiti looking through everyday life. It sees the urban space as a social product, which is incomplete without the tactics of the inhabitants and redefined as a result of appropriation. It looks through the history of graffiti, graffiti writers, their motivations and descriptions, working mechanism of the act, spaces chosen and their overall relations to power placed upon urban space in regard to its predescribed theoretical framework reaching out an integrated explanation on play/game theory and resistance it describes. It claims graffiti as a game of the juveniles acting in urban space as their playground.

This dissertation investigates the case of world music in Turkey as an illustration of the discursive mechanisms involved in the production of a global cultural form from what the globality has defined as the &lsquo / local&rsquo / . The study attempts to show the complicated nature of the process by examining how the musical forms and themes supposedly belonging to the &lsquo / local&rsquo / are incorporated into and appropriated in the discourses associated with world music and into the corresponding strategies of the actors. The discursive compilations, articulations and dislocations taking place in the subspecies of the commercial category of world music in a particular locality are investigated by mapping the discursive topographies on the imaginary continuum from the global to the local. This study views locality as a space where a repertoire of discourses are contested and articulated in the production and consumption of global cultural commodities. In line with this understanding, this dissertation also investigates what is the local as it is produced through the particular brand of world music in Turkey. The study also aims to contribute to the theoretical discussions in the literature on the interaction between the global and the local by looking at the production of a global cultural form in a particular locality.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the current situation of the Crimean Karaites. This community is one of the smallest groups with a population of 800 in the Crimean Peninsula and 2,000 in total all around the world. However, they are trying to resist assimilation via launching a cultural revival project. This thesis studies the cultural loss among the Crimean Karaites and analyzes the factors leading to assimilation. It is argued that despite their efforts of cultural revival, Crimean Karaites constitute a disappearing community.

Face2Face is a photographic project realized by JR, an undercover photographer and Marco, a technology consultant, in 2007 in the Middle East context. It consisted of taking the portraits of Israeli and Palestinian people who were doing the same job, printing them in huge formats and putting them on various unavoidable places in Israeli and Palestinian cities. The project was based on the idea that Israeli and Palestinian people were so much similar to each other, as if they were &lsquo / twin brothers raised in different families&rsquo / but that they were not aware of that. Therefore, the artists decided to provide them with images of the other side which would make people be surprised, laugh, stop for a while and think about the other side once again. The artists hoped that such a reworking of the ideas about the other side would hopefully motivate people to enter into dialogue with each other, which would eventually end up in peaceful co-existence. This thesis sets this photographic project as its starting point. It focuses upon its conceptualization of dialogue, which is based on the idea of seeing the other from a new perspective, and compares it with Mikhail Bakhtin&rsquo / s concept of dialogue and Emmanuel Levinas&rsquo / s concept of face-to-face, which are based on the idea of disrupting the self. It then criticizes the project for its neglect of various dimensions which shape Israeli and Palestinian identities, such as diaspora, nostalgia and home and of the heavy burden of the past on these two communities&rsquo / present. As a result, the thesis focuses upon the concept of collective memory at length and then discusses photography at the service of collective memory. Another section is devoted to the analysis of Israeli and Palestinian collective memories. The photographic project Face2Face is discussed all throughout the thesis in terms of its failure to spot the crucial dimensions in Israeli-Palestinian context, no matter how well intended it was.

This thesis investigates the relationship between the social movement and theatre art in Turkey between 1960 and 1971 and investigates how the development of a dependent capitalism influenced the development of the classes and the political theatre. It tries to reveal the convergences between the political ideology of the classes, their organizations and the aesthetic ideology of the field of cultural production. While doing so it investigates the ties between the ideological and practical aspects of the class struggle, the artists&rsquo / aesthetic views and their relations of production.

The purpose of this thesis is to research the relation between spatial structures and social relations including the cultural ones. This study specifically researches the relation between the construction and the representation of urban space and urban culture in Sakarya Caddesi as an instance of society-space interaction. This research focuses on Sakarya Caddesi where various urban cultural practices such as entertainment, has intensified. It deals with the constitution and representation of this entertainment space and researches how a particular place is constructed materially and imaginarily, how different social actors perceive, interpret and constitute a particular place in different ways. Accordingly, the contestation over the representation and use of place is discussed in this study. In order to comprehend a local place and culture, the issues should be thought in a wider context. Therefore, Sakarya Caddesi which is a part of urban space and the urban practices which occur in this area, are evaluated in global context. This study, discusses the influences of global changes on urban space, urban cultural practices and lifestyles. Discussing Sakarya Caddesi and its culture through discourses, this thesis relates spatial categories with some concepts of cultural politics such as identity.

This study analyzes the representation of women and modernization in Tunisian society by looking at Tunisian films produced in Tunisia after 1980. Study aims to develop a new concept to understand modernization process of women in a non-western, Muslim, and North African society through representations in films. Women&rsquo / s modernization process has been analyzed through the qualitative analyses of five Tunisian films by focusing on conceptualization of women issue as one of the main elements of Tunisian modernization. More presicely, the study examines stages of women&rsquo / s modernization on the one side, and representation of this process in films on the other. In conclusion, I argue that examining written literature alone is not enough to understand women&rsquo / s modernization process in a non-western society. Expansion of modernization is not rapid and equal in the Tunisian society. If taking place in the public sphere, having a paid job and having education are taken as the indicators of women&rsquo / s modernization, it is seen that lower class women face with problems in every stage of Tunisian modernization. At that point, attending to visual sources like cinema which has the ability to reflect the society can give us convenient information about this process.