PAMER (Postcolonial Studies Application and Research Center)

Relations between East and West constitute the most important fault lines of the post-Cold War era. Samuel Huntington examines these fault lines in his thesis of the Clash of Civilizations. The fact that this period coincided with the new global politics that the September 11 attacks followed into the world and, more precisely, with the period of global war against terrorism carried out under the leadership of the United States, has brought a new dimension to the continuing equation between East and West, has also reduced the block to the equation of East and Eastern societies positioned against. In other words, the position represented by the West and the East today is a dominant, industrialized, liberal, economically capitalist, religiously enlightened and racially whitish cultural entity represented by the West from the geographical demarcations in the international discourse, it is perceived as a society consisting of East and East and the culture that they claim to produce. This means that there may be a segment that is perceived as an alienated East both in the East and West.

When we look at the information production process, we observe: In the world represented by the relationship between East and West, the prevailing knowledge has so far been produced or deemed to be produced by Western knowledge producers and is often provided by the wisdom, based on observations, accumulated, and the fact that it has been reproduced, both sides of this equation, reveal increasing inequality and a seeming hierarchical relationship in terms of systems of representation by Michel Foucault. In one hand, the East and the Eastern are positioned as Orientalists who perceive themselves as the subject matter to be examined, on another note they need to be examined, corrected, defused, taught, educated and democratized. As a result, in the expression of Edward Said, the Orient and the Oriental in general and the Islamic culture in the narrower frame, and the society it produces an opposition is observed, analyzed, interpreted, judged, a binary opposition has occurred. In postcolonial theory, orientalism represents this production of information, distribution and dissemination and post-colonialism represents a critical point of view that produces response. PAMER examines both the production of orientalist knowledge and the postcolonial knowledge as an answer to it.

At this time, where Turkey has become an agenda-maker and protector from the position of producing an international agenda, due to the geopolitical importance of the region and the global arena, PAMER-based studies are also of cultural and social significance.

PURPOSE:

Through postcolonial studies, a wide range of social sciences and sciences provide a range of research and research opportunities in the field of science, from international relations, anthropology, sociology, religion and linguistics to many social sciences, medicine and health sciences to various nature and engineering sciences. Theories of classical international relations theories such as Orientalism, Feminism, Marxism and Modernization theories contribute to the formation of information systems that will offer an alternative to "acceptable" information production from "one and only West" sources by evaluating the community from the postcolonial approach.

Some sample questions that fall into the interest of postcolonial theory include:

  1. Is there a difference in acidity between the content offered in America and the content of Coca Cola, for example Coca Cola, sold in Turkey? Do the sugar ratios also differ? If so, how does postcolonial theory explain this?
  2. What factors played a role in the formation of the borders of the nation-states that were structured in the postcolonial period?
  3. Why is North Africa separated from Africa and included in the Middle East in Western originated knowledge production and dissemination?
  4. Are some drugs produced in the US being tested in developing countries in the experimental phase?
  5. Why are some medicines that have been restricted in Western countries to be "over the counter" in developing countries and accessible without a prescription?
  6. By excluding environmental factors such as ethnicity, race, sex, etc., which environmental factors can be taken into consideration, can we explain the difference between normal and lower cholesterol levels between developed and developing / underdeveloped countries?

How can we comprehend the postcolonial view of the gathering of the words "blood" and "diamond" that gave the name of director Edward Zwick's "Blood Diamond"?

 

FIELDS OF ACTIVITY:

The center's activities are activated through two channels, academic and social.

I) Academic Activities: To conduct research in theoretical and applied fields in order to prepare knowledge production related to postcolonial theory in different branches of science, and share research results through publications and conferences / seminars.
a) Periodic seminars/conferences: To support information programs to be provided by people working on postcolonial theory from academia and non-academia.
b) Workshop/Debates: To organize practical studies that bring students and faculty members together.
c) DataBank: To enable the collection of studies on postcolonial theory in virtual environment.
d) Communication Network: To establish a communication network that includes persons / institutions / groups working on postcolonialism.
II) Social Activities: One of the characteristics that distinguishes these activities from academic studies is that they are open to the broader community outside the world of academia.
a) Educational programs are organized in order to raise awareness of different levels of society by making use of the contributions of non-governmental organizations, think-tanks and similar organizations.
b) To understand world, regional and local politics through using postcolonial criticism and to be in prospective projections.
c) To provide support to the democratization process of Turkey and to contribute to the work in the field of sustainable development.
d) To contribute to the correct definition of the concept of "New Turkey".
e) To produce information in the field of historical revision in the creation of a man-oriented and human-focused management system.
f) To produce projections from the state-based administration to the citizen-centric governance and to the post-colonial perspective on the future.