ABSTRACT THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN THE FORMATION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN POST-SOVIET KAZAKHSTAN DOgANAKSOY, ipek M.Sc., Department of Eurasian Studies Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. AySeg&uuml / l Ayding&uuml / n September 2008, 114 Pages The aim of the thesis is to analyze the relationship between language and the formation of national identity in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. The launch of language policies in the Republic of Kazakhstan right after the break up of the Soviet Union aim to promote the status of Kazakh language as well as to support its use in state and public life spheres as a means of communication and to foster the national consciousness among the public. Although, official efforts combined with the discourses of the political elites aim to promote the status of the Kazakh language, various factors such as, the demographic structure, the quality of the Kazakh language and the rural and urban dichotomy, hindered the effective enforcement of these policies. The main argument of the thesis is that due to the existing factors which are mentioned above the usage of Kazakh language by the people of Kazakhstan as a means of communication in the short-run does not seem to be attainable. The Kazakh language, within the process of national identity formation, acts and would remain to act as a symbolic tool.

This study explores how Turkish Cypriot identity is defined by Turkish Cypriot opinion leaders and Turkish Cypriot media in view of the longstanding interethnic dispute prevailing in the island. After a short historical review of the problem with reference to interethnic conflict and theoretical considerations pertinent to identity formation, short theoretical account of media and opinion formation, the state of the press in TRNC is displayed. This is followed by the analysis of the indepth interviews conducted within a sample of opinion leaders in TRNC and the press content in the Northern Cyprus at times which can be considered as turning points in the course of the unification negotiations. As for a conclusion, in the light of the findings, the question of whether or not the controversy around the national identity is self reproducing is tried to be answered.

The present study examines how political party leaders in Turkey strategically construct boundaries of the Turkish nation, which norms they attribute to it, and the prototypicality claims of these party leaders regarding the nation. Leaders&rsquo / national identity constructions are expected to be in line with their parties&rsquo / collective projects and serve to increase their claims of representativeness in the eyes of the electorate. A secod aim of the study is to inquire leaders&rsquo / attempts in rhetorically including the Kurdish population to the Turkish nation construction. The particular context was 2011 General Elections and the data was composed of campaign speeches of AK Parti, MHP and CHP. The campaign speeches given at Eastern and Southeastern regions of Turkey prior to the elections constituted the data. The analysis revealed that three leaders consensualized on the national flag, the official language, the unity of the land and the state as the claimed commonalities of the Turkish nation. Differences emerge when elaborating on the nature of the binding relationship between nationals. Erdogan (AK Parti) puts more emphasis on religion, Bah&ccedil / eli (MHP) underlines shared history and culture and Kili&ccedil / daroglu (CHP) depicts a nation based on citizenship. Nation constructions also involve attribution of national norms that also differ among parties and coincide with the topics over which leaders claim prototypicality. Apart from invoking national categories, party leaders argued over universal and other social categories (in this study / politician category) when constructing their rhetoric. Taking social categories for granted impairs the possibility of social change. Therefore, examining strategic purposes these categories serve, as in this study, is intended to empower those who struggle through their effects.

Nominally, Thailand has never been colonized by western imperial states. However, just as Benedict Anderson stated that ¡§it¡¦s borders were colonially determined, therefore, one can see unusually clearly the emergence of a new state-mind within a ¡¥traditional¡¦ structure of political power¡¨. In order to resist the invasion of imperialism, Siam¡¦s rulers bent their attention to build a polity corresponded with the game rule of the Sovereign State System. It required that Siam¡¦s political and cultural boundaries must be overlapping. Then Thainess which was based on the trinitarian mystery of ¡§Nation, Religion, and King¡¨ was created, and became the central value of Thailand¡¦s national identity. During the last one hundred years, Thai rulers impose the Thai nationalism on their people within border. Consequently, there are so many conflicts between the dominant ethnic group and the ethnic minorities while the policy of national assimilation is put into practice by way of national education system, religion, and the mass media. Recently, with the tides of de-territorialization, and de-nationalization, the capability of nation-state as a basic unit of international system is questionable. It¡¦s the best time to rethink the constituents of nation-sate, especially the role of boundary and identity. Undoubtedly, Thailand is the best object of study because of it¡¦s distinctive historical legacy.

"Visualizing Race: Neoliberal Multiculturalism and the Struggle for Koreanness in Contemporary South Korean Television" investigates visual representations of multicultural subjects in both celebrity culture and the reality television genre to examine the struggle for Koreanness in contemporary Korean television. My aim is to explain the transformation from a modern monoracial Korea to a multicultural, global Korea as a national project of what I call "neoliberal multiculturalism" and to problematize the implicit tie between the two words, "neoliberal" and "multiculturalism." Using the category of mixed-race as an analytical window onto this cultural shift, I attempt to link the recent explosion of multiculturalism discourse in Korea to the much larger cultural, institutional, and ideological implications of racial globalization. To illustrate this shift, the dissertation analyzes both black and white mixed-race celebrities as well as ordinary multicultural subjects appearing on Korean reality programs. I examine historical archives, popular press sources, policy documents, and television programs in order to analyze them as an inter-textual network that is actively negotiating national identity. Utilizing the concept of neoliberal multiculturalism as an overarching framework, the dissertation explicates how concepts such as nationality, race, gender, class, and the television genre are intricately articulated; it also critically deconstructs the hegemonic notion of a multicultural, global Korea presented by the Korean media. I argue that Korean television deploys racial representations as a way to suture national anxiety over an increasing number of racial others and projects a multicultural fantasy towards Koreans. This interdisciplinary project contributes to several fields of study by explicating the changed cultural meaning of mixed-race in the age of globalization, defining the organic relation between the medium of television and racial representation, broadening our understanding of Asian multiculturalism and the racial politics in the region, and examining the particulars of ethnic nationalism appearing in the Korean media and popular culture. / text

This dissertation study examined how the activation of national identity influences consumer evaluations of ads using patriotic appeals. Specifically, this study proposed that (1) priming of national identity through the cues within media-context would activate consumers’ national identity, making it momentarily salient, and this increased national identity salience, in turn, would affect consumer responses to the ads using patriotic themes; and (2) the impact of national identity salience on evaluations of patriotic ads among ethnic minority consumers (i.e., Asian Americans) would be different from that among majority consumers (i.e., Caucasian Americans). As expected, findings from this study showed that activating consumers’ national identity through a national identity prime (i.e., a news story about a national event) led to favorable responses to the ads featuring patriotic themes. Further, results of this study indicated that the effect of national identity salience on increasing evaluations of ads using patriotic themes was significantly stronger for ethnic minority consumers than was for majority consumers. / text

The present study examines a specific form of literary memorialization of Scottishness, stubborn and elusive as that term might be, under the concrete political, social, and economic conditions of the late eighteenth-century. It holds that literary history and criticism can make a significant contribution to understanding Scottish history, both in its own terms and in relation to British history writ large. It inserts into these histories a much wider range of late eighteenth-century Scottish poets than previous scholarship and deepens our understanding of the cultural and discursive manifestations of British state formation under the extreme stress of war and revolution. It also reveals the way the political crisis of the French Revolution converged with pre-existing concerns about the impact of union on the Scottish economy and society, as well as with shared Anglo-Scottish critiques of state power that feature so prominently in the political history of this period. Many of the poets studied here have never figured significantly in political, cultural, or literary histories of the period and, with a few notable exceptions, no analysis of their poetry, whether in political or literary terms, has yet occurred. Consequently, this study brings both historical and literary analysis to bear on a large and diverse group of Scottish poets with a range of political and aesthetic perspectives that reflect not only on the question of Scottish, English, and British "identities," but on the formation of British poetry more generally. / text

Admiral Edward Vernon’s capture of Porto Bello, a Spanish stronghold in the Caribbean, was met with enthusiastic celebration when the news arrived in Britain in early 1740. With just six ships, he had struck a dramatic blow to restore British honor and protect British trade. The response to Vernon’s victory was widespread and varied: public rallies, verse, sermons of thanksgiving, annual celebrations of Vernon’s birthday, and a diverse material culture. The capture itself accomplished little and the campaign’s small gains were entirely erased by Vernon’s failures at Cartagena in 1740-41, yet Vernon continued to be celebrated by the British public. It seems surprising that Vernon excited so much popularity and lasting commemoration during the period in which his short-lived successes and catastrophic failures were most obvious and consequential. To explain Vernon’s extraordinary and enduring popularity, this thesis employs a variety of primary sources viewed through the lenses of national identity and gender to argue that Vernon assumed lasting political and cultural importance because his admirers interpreted broader meanings from his actions and character. Celebrating Vernon gave Britons a way to articulate what Britishness meant to them, and what they believed it should mean for others. In chapter 1, I argue that the parliamentary opposition skillfully employed celebration of Vernon after his capture of Porto Bello in 1739 to argue for ministerial change. In chapter 2, I argue that Vernon enjoyed continued popularity in the 1740s in spite of his failures because his supporters argued that he embodied the “publick spirit” of the mercantile empire and aggressive masculinity that many believed had been lacking in public figures of the 1730s. Whatever his real successes or failures, Admiral Vernon became an important rhetorical tool for those who sought to imbue British politics and culture with the “national” values of the mercantile empire, aggressive foreign policy, and bold masculinity that many believed represented the way forward in a period of change and growing imperial challenges.

This report examines the construction of whiteness in Appalachia through a close study of two New Year’s Eve celebrations in a small community in Brasstown, North Carolina. By examining these two celebrations, I draw out questions of race and racialization that have been largely overlooked in the study of Appalachia and illustrate the connections between the construction of a whitewashed Appalachian identity and the construction of an equally pale national identity. This report challenges the idea that Appalachia as a region is “racially innocent” and therefore does not play a role in discussions of race in America. On the contrary, I show that Appalachia’s position as a site of production of a national culture and identity means that in the context of Appalachia, race and racialization demand scrutiny as a means for understanding what “whiteness” is. / text

Costa Rica is a small country located in Central America, characterized by having one of the most stable democracies in Latin America. Costa Rica was the first country in the world to officially abolish its armed forces (1949), following the Civil War in 1948. From the time of its foundation as a Republic, Costa Rica has been defined in terms of homogeneity and socio-economic equality. These two features have been recognized as the main elements of the country's national identity, and the reason for Costa Ricans to be perceived as peaceful and happy individuals. This research utilizes the methodological lens of Performance Studies to analyze these iconic elements of Costa Rican national identity and to challenge the view of Costa Rica as a paradise. Even though the international community continues defining this country in the same manner in which it was defined during the second part of the nineteen century, the reality is that during the last three decades this nation has changed so much that the same definition is not adequate anymore. Street violence in the country has become a threat to citizens of all socio-economic classes, taking away their peace and happiness. I analyze this development and the response by the citizens in an attempt to show that Costa Rica is facing an internal conflict that could have devastating on its society. Many social movements have formed during the last decade to try to bring Costa Rica back to the nation it was at the beginning of the twentieth century. The most important characteristic of these movements is that they try to unmask the country showing that it is not peaceful in an attempt to recover the peace they believed characterized the Costa Rica of their ancestors.