"The child question" the politics of child welfare in early republican Turkey

Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts

Volumn , Issue , 2003, Pages 255-272

  Libal, Kathryn ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34249300416     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: None     Document Type: Chapter

References (41)

1. Salim Ahmed, "Çocuk Haftasinda Çocuk Esirgeme Kurumu", Cumhuriyet, 24 April 1936, p. 6.
2. See Mine Ener (chapter 9 this volume); Nadir Özbek (chapter 10 this volume) and "The Politics of Poor Relief in the Late Ottoman Empire, 1876-1914", New Perspectives on Turkey 21(Fall 1999):1-33.
3. For an account that focuses on Abdülhamid II and orphans in the late Ottoman period, see Nadir Özbek, "II. Abdülhamid ve Kimsesiz Çocuklar", Tarih ve Toplum 31, no. 182(Şubat 1999):11-20.
4. Necdet Sakaoǧlu relates that Abdülhamid II mandated the opening of Darül Hayr-i Ali after a six-year-old orphan asked him to create such an institution; see his "Darüleytamlar", Istanbul Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: Ana Basim AŞ, 1994), 2:558.
5. Stanford Shaw, "Resettlement of Refugees in Anatolia", Turkish Studies Association Bulletin 22, no. 1(spring 1998):68.
6. See, in particular, Ann Welles Brown, "Orphanages", in Constantinople Today, the Pathfinder Survey of Constantinople, ed. Clarence R. Johnson (New York: Macmillan, 1922), 227-257. Mabelle Phillips's essay on "Widowhood" in the same volume (pp. 287-321) also illuminates various state, private, and international assistance programs to provide poor relief for widows and families affected by the decade or more of military conflict.
7. By the mid-nineteenth century and particularly by the post-World War I period of occupation, the European and American missionary presence in Istanbul was pronounced (particularly by the American Red Cross Association, Near East Relief, and other American missionary-philanthropic enterprises). A social history of poor relief and aid to refugees in the late Ottoman Empire would be incomplete without addressing local (e.g., Ottoman Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and Jewish) and international work on child welfare, the interplay between these realms, and the increasing politicization of a notion of the 'child' as future citizen of the Ottoman (Turkish) state. See, for example, Nazif Özturk, Türk Yenileşme Tarihi Çerçevresinde Vakif Müessesesi (Ankara: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfi Yayinlari, 1995), 322-335.
8. Brown, "Orphanages", 235. The Children's Protection Society mentioned here refers to an earlier incarnation of the Children's Protection Society that is often not recognized in republican historical records. The Istanbul society (with its bylaws and practices) was later blended with an organization formed in Ankara under the same name in 1921. For more on the struggle to define an administrative "center" for the Children's Protection Society in the years just before the establishment of the Turkish republic
9. see Cüneyd Okay, "Osmanli Dönemi Himaye-i Etfal Cemiyeti Üzerine Belgeler/Notlar", Toplumsal Tarih 52(April 1998):21-31.
10. See, for example, Justin McCarthy, "The Muslim Population of Anatolia, 1878-1927" (Ph. D. diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 1978);
11. Frederic Shorter, "The Population of Turkey after the War of Independence", International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 17(1985):417-441.
12. C. Claflin Davis, "Refugees", in Constantinople Today, the Pathfinder Survey of Constantinople, ed. Clarence R. Johnson (New York: Macmillan, 1922), 203.
13. See Shaw, "Resettlement of Refugees in Anatolia."
14. See also, League of Nations, "Commission for the Protection of Women and Children in the Near East: Extract from the Minutes of the Thirty-fifth Session of the Council", League of Nations IV Social (A.32. 1925. IV), 1-16.
15. Deniz Kandiyoti, "End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism, and Women in Turkey", in Women, Islam, and the State, ed. Deniz Kandiyoti (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 22-47.
16. "Fabrikalarda Çocuk", Yeni Adam 105(January 2, 1934):5.
17. Neşet Halil Atay, "Istanbul Ilk Mekteplerindeki 7000 Çocuk", Gürbüz Türk Çocugu 97(1934):3-7.
18. See Zafer Toprak, "The Family, Feminism, and the State during the Young Turk Period, 1980-1918", in Première rencontre internationale sur l'Empire Ottoman et la Turquie moderne, ed. Edhem Eldem (Istanbul: Institut National de Langues et Civilisations Orientales; Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1990), 449-450.
19. At the center of discourses on the problem of the child was the specter of failing to raise children as future Turkish citizens. I address the ideological conflation of child and the future in the essay, "National Futures: Time and the Child in the Making of the Turkish Republic" (paper presented at the ninety-eighth annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, Ill., November 17, 1999).
20. See Henry Elisha Allen, The Turkish Transformation-A Study in Social and Religious Development (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935).
21. See also Jessica Selma Tiregöl, "The Role of Primary Education in Nation-State-Building: The Case of the Early Turkish Republic, 1923-1938" (Ph. D. diss., Princeton University, 1998).
22. Elsewhere I have written about the gradual increase in state involvement in the policies and practices of the Children's Protection Society in the 1920s and 1930s; see Kathryn Libal, "The Children's Protection Society: Nationalizing Child Welfare in Early Republican Turkey", New Perspectives on Turkey 23(Fall 2000):53-78.
23. Süleyman Nazif, "Unutmayin ve Verin", Çocuk Haftasi (Istanbul: Milliyet Matbaasi, 1929), 1:53.
24. Allen, The Turkish Transformation, 198.
25. Özbek, "The Politics of Poor Relief", 2.
26. Türkiye Hilaliahmer Cemiyeti Istanbul Merkezi 1934 Meclisi Umumisine Takdim Olunan Rapor ve Hesabat Cetvelleri (Istanbul: Ahmet Ihsan Matbaasi, 1934), 8.
27. See Okay, "Osmanli Dönemi Himaye-i Etfal Cemiyeti";
28. Mustafa Sahin, "23 Nisan ve Himaye-i Etfal", Toplumsal Tarih 40(April 1997), 15-18.
29. Okay, "Osmanli Dönemi Himaye-i Etfal Cemiyeti", 21-22.
30. Türkiye Çocuk Esirgeme Kurumu Istanbul Merkezi 1938-1939 Yili Kongresinde Okunan Umumî Rapor (Istanbul: Kader Basimevi, 1940), 1-3;
31. Türkiye Çocuk Esirgeme Kurumunun Küçük Bir Tarihçesi, 1921-1939 (Istanbul: Resimli Ay Matbaasi T. L. Sirketi, 1940).
32. see his "Dr. Mehmet Fuad (Umay) Bey' in Amerika Birleşik Devletleri Seyahati", Akademik Araqtirmalar 1, no. 2(1996):18-29.
33. (Kanun Numara) 1947 Çocuk Bayrami Münasebetile Nisani Yirmisinden Otuzuna Kadar Posta Müraselâtile Telgraflara Sefkat Pulu Yapiştirilmasi Hakkinda Kanun (11 Nisan 1932)", Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Sicilli Kavanini Kanunlar (Istanbul: Cihan Matbaasi, 1933), 271.
34. See, for example, On Beqinci ve On Altnci Yillar (1936-1937) Iq Raporu (Ankara: Basvekâlet Matbaasi, 1938);
35. TÇEK Istanbul Merkezi 1938-1939 Yili Kongresinde Okunan Umumî Rapor, 1940, which provide summaries of earlier CPS congresses in addition to new results.
36. "Bir Yazi ve Tahlili", 21-22.
37. For more on Derviş's contributions, see Kathryn Libal, "National Futures: The 'Child Question' in Early Republican Turkey" (Ph. D. diss., University of Washington, 2001).
38. Suad Derviş, "Kimsesiz Çocuklarimizla Meşgul Bir Müessese Yok Mu?" Cumhuriyet, 14 April 1934, p. 6.
39. Sabiha Zekeriya, "Biz...", Çocuk Haftasi 1(1930):44.
40. Jacques Donzelot, The Policing of Families (1979; reprint, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
41. Reşat Kasaba, "Kemalist Certainties and Modernist Ambiguities", in Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, ed. Sibel Bozdogan and Reşat Kasaba (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), 16-17.