In my dissertation I critically analyze and evaluate how the Turkish nation and culture is `performed' and `constructed' in two Turkish Festivals in Chicago: The Chicago Turkish Festival and The Chicago Turkish World Festival. I examine what this representation suggests about the complex national and cultural identity politics the Turkish Diaspora negotiate, with both their native and adoptive countries. My study draws on theories of nationalism and transnational nationalism, as well as critical cultural studies concepts including the `tourist gaze', (cultural) `spectacle', and `internal colonialism.' Because nationality festivals are public demonstrations involving a mass audience, my dissertation investigates how representations of Turkey (visual and verbal) are dependent upon the images and narratives popular among the American audience that are targeted. In an era of globalization, the cultural representation of Turkey in these two Turkish festivals in Chicago is used for political and commercial ends to: a) form good relations with the local U.S. state officials and to help lobby for the Turkish community in Chicago; and b) open up new means of income for local artists and entrepreneurs as well as transnational businesses that attend these festivals from Turkey and other countries. The Turkish American cultural organizations, The Turkish American Cultural Alliance (TACA) and the Turkish American Society of Chicago (TASC), that organizes these festivals, in many ways take part in nationalism from abroad (transnational nationalism) when they promote the official national discourses of the homeland and receive material and moral support from the Turkish Consulate of Chicago and the Tourism and Culture Ministry in Turkey. My dissertation demonstrates how Turkey's representation in these festivals by the two leading Turkish American organizations have become dependent on both European Orientalist discourses of the Ottoman Era that are internalized by the Turks today, as well as the very singular and monolithic nationalist discourses of the Turkey's founding fathers. I include a historical analysis of Chicago's Turkish community, including the way it was represented at Chicago's Columbian Exposition in 1893 (Chapter 2), an ethnographic analysis of the Turkish American organizations that have organized the Turkish festivals in Chicago (Chapter 3), and a critical analysis of activities and live performances that take place at both festivals (Chapter 4 & 5). My methods of study are field note observations, interviews conducted with the festival organizers and volunteers, and surveys conducted with festival participants. My research reveals that although the two Turkish American organizations, TACA and TASC, use similar national and cultural narratives, symbols, and representations, they differ in their choice of glorifying either Ottoman history or the history of the Turkish Republic, and on the degree to which Islam constitutes Turkish culture and national identity. This serves political ends as it reflects the ongoing political debates in Turkey over what social and cultural identities make up the Turkish nation.

This dissertation considers how the party-state of the People’s Republic of China has been mobilizing various forms of interpellation in an attempt to sustain a continuous imagination of a particular community defined on the terms of a shared “Chinese” national identity. As well, the research considers how these forms of interpellation have been challenged by a range of complex diasporic viewer responses. Taking media productions of the Mainland China television industry as my point of reference, I have studied in detail, multiple productions of the widely popular, complex program, the Spring Festival Gala (SFG) produced by China Central Television. Though not without its contradictions, this show has employed various interpellative strategies, persistently and continuously hailing viewers into the subject position of loyal members of an enduring “Chinese Nationality.” However, interpellation is one thing, subjectification within it is another. To better grapple with the cultural citizenship of transnationalized Chinese, this dissertation also considers observations regarding the receptions of the SFG by diasporic “Chinese subjects” who now live in Canada. While their continuous imagining of the “Chinese Nationality” helps to better understand the complex mechanisms which contribute to the retaining power of interpellation, their moments of “de-imagining” also shed light on the problems and difficulties of such interpellation. These moments are considered as possible openings to the formation of fluid, multiple Chinese subjectivities that lay the groundwork for a “flexible citizenship” (Ong, 1993; 1999) for all “Chinese,” furthering the endeavor to go beyond certain nationalist and/or statist visions of identity, subjectivity, and citizenship.

This dissertation considers how the party-state of the People’s Republic of China has been mobilizing various forms of interpellation in an attempt to sustain a continuous imagination of a particular community defined on the terms of a shared “Chinese” national identity. As well, the research considers how these forms of interpellation have been challenged by a range of complex diasporic viewer responses. Taking media productions of the Mainland China television industry as my point of reference, I have studied in detail, multiple productions of the widely popular, complex program, the Spring Festival Gala (SFG) produced by China Central Television. Though not without its contradictions, this show has employed various interpellative strategies, persistently and continuously hailing viewers into the subject position of loyal members of an enduring “Chinese Nationality.” However, interpellation is one thing, subjectification within it is another. To better grapple with the cultural citizenship of transnationalized Chinese, this dissertation also considers observations regarding the receptions of the SFG by diasporic “Chinese subjects” who now live in Canada. While their continuous imagining of the “Chinese Nationality” helps to better understand the complex mechanisms which contribute to the retaining power of interpellation, their moments of “de-imagining” also shed light on the problems and difficulties of such interpellation. These moments are considered as possible openings to the formation of fluid, multiple Chinese subjectivities that lay the groundwork for a “flexible citizenship” (Ong, 1993; 1999) for all “Chinese,” furthering the endeavor to go beyond certain nationalist and/or statist visions of identity, subjectivity, and citizenship.

Cette recherche examine les pratiques politiques médiatisées des migrants marocains. En mobilisant une double approche diachronique et synchronique, on montre dans un premier temps que ces pratiques ne datent pas d’aujourd’hui mais qu’elles sont concomitantes aux premières vagues migratoires marocaines. A travers l’analyse d’un corpus de « presse militante », on approche la façon dont se manifestent les appartenances, les différentes stratégies de représentation d’un soi collectif ainsi que les formes d’expression des identités politiques de ces migrants, pendant la période coloniale et durant le processus de démocratisation du Maroc. On étudie dans un deuxième temps les pratiques politiques qui se construisent, circulent et se donnent à voir dans différents espaces en ligne pour comprendre comment elles participent à la construction et à la réécriture de la marocanité. Toutes ces pratiques politiques médiatisées ne se déroulent pas dans un vide social. Il est primordial de prendre en compte, pour leur appréhension, du cadre sociopolitique dans lequel elles se déroulent mais aussi de la question de la stratification sociale. Au delà de la question de la technique, c’est l’action symbolique d’écriture de la politique qui réunit l’ensemble des acteurs migrants engagés dans ce type de pratiques depuis les années 1930 et jusqu’à nos jours. Le geste d’écriture, comme action performative promettant d’obtenir une existence et une visibilité, est toujours accompagné par cet espoir de reconquérir une parole confisquée par un pouvoir politique dominant. A travers la médiation de l’écriture, ces pratiques médiatisées sont l’expression d’une volonté d’action de quelques groupes de migrants, déterritorialisés et non investis d’autorité, mais qui veulent prendre la parole pour s’exprimer sur ce qui se passe là-Bas, dans leur pays d’origine. / This research examines the mediatized political practices of Moroccan migrants. By mobilizing a double diachronic and synchronic approaches, this paper shows firstly that these practices are not new but concomitant with the first Moroccan migration waves. Through the analysis of an “activist press” corpus, this research shows how memberships, the different strategies of representation of collective, and political identities of these migrants during the colonial period and during the process of democratization in Morocco, are manifested. Secondly, this paper studied political practices, which circulate in different online spaces, to understand how they contribute to the construction and rewriting of the “Moroccaness”. For a better understanding, it is essential to take into account the socio-Political context in which these mediatized political practices are developed, in addition to issues of social stratification. Beyond the question of technology, it is the symbolic action of writing the policy that gathers all migrant actors who have been engaged in such practices since the 1930s until today. The act of writing as a performative action, which holds the promise of achieving existence and visibility, is always accompanied by the hope of regaining a voice, which has been cloaked by the dominant political power. Through the mediation of writing, these practices are the expression of the action of some migrant groups, who are deterritorialized and not invested with any authority, but who want to take the floor to articulate about what is happening in their homeland.