ULUS VE HARİTA
NATION AND MAP

Summary/Abstract: Map renders the nation visible. It determines the borders of the homeland and distinguishes inside from the outside; it points to the probable threats to the land within the borders or engenders dreams of expansion towards outside the borders. Maps, through presenting the nation and the homeland within a meaningful coherence and concretizing them facilitates people to bond with this unity, hence reinforces the emotion of belonging to the nation. If there were no maps it would have been harder to think about the nation, feel a loyalty towards the homeland and imagine the nation. As a result of this from 19th Century onwards maps became elements of nationalisms. Maps with world maps, history atlases, schoolbooks find themselves an effective and widespread area of usage as educative materials. Hence maps from childhood onwards function as tools where we position the world and ourselves/nation within it. In this study the political language of maps, a neglected issue within the social sciences in Turkey, will be tackled through the nation- map relation. The role maps play in construction and imagination of the nation will be analyzed.

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