Contesting the Global Consumption Ethos: Reterritorialization of Rock in Turkey

Abstract

This article contributes to the debates on globalization by studying the reterritorialization of rock music in Turkey to illustrate why and how heterogeneity exists in markets. Four years of data collection suggest that in Turkey, rockers have discovered ways to create their own modes of producing and consuming rock music that is no longer regarded as foreign. Such reterritorialization suggests that the authors reconsider the categories to interpret the meanings in and across global-local contexts and micromacro linkages. The article also illustrates and discusses rock as a postmodern self-marketing commodity with a dialogical evolution.

Collective ideological work for an alternative to consumerism: How an intentional community balances ideals and practice

“…Turkey was selected because the first author is Turkish and because addressing the research goal would require a context in which collective ideological work is practiced. In Turkey, engaging with alternatives to consumerism is often ideologically charged, for example, in the form of politically motivated practices of brand rejection (Sandikci & Ekici, ), or in attempts at antiglobalisation of consumption through re‐territorialisation of music consumption (Yazıcıoğlu, ).…”

‘Indiestanbul’: counter-hegemonic music and third republicanism in Turkey

“…Yazıcıoğlu considers the extents to which rock music has been deterritorialised, that is, ‘taken from its [original] social context and applied to a new one in a different physical space’ or re territorialised, which involves ‘the making of this cultural pattern one's own by producing a local form in this new society and geography’ (p. 240). Based on interview and online forum data, Yazıcıoğlu (2010) identifies three types of rock fan in Turkey – Pro-Westerners , Rock Boomers and Pro-Turkish Rockers – representing a continuum spanning from rock perceived as a deterritorialised and essentially western form, to rock perceived as a local form independent of and different to its western counterpart. The Pro-Western fan is typically over 35 years old, educated and among other characteristics ‘despise[s] the sound of rock in Turkish’ (p. 244), listens primarily to western rock sung in English and identifies with western rock culture.…”

“…The Pro-Turkish Rocker however listens exclusively to Turkish Rock ( Türkçe Rock ) and feels no affinity with western rock at all. As such, Yazıcıoğlu (2010) asserts that ‘after four decades of deterritorialization, rock is reterritorialised, making Türkçe Rock a new internalized experience’ (p. 248). Yazıcıoğlu (2010) notes that fans of Türkçe Rock can display highly conservative values, particularly with regard to notions of (female) sexual purity and modesty.…”

“…A final dualism that is pertinent to a discussion of Turkish indie is the deterritorialisation/re-territorialisation dualism adapted from Appadurai (1996) by Yazıcıoğlu (2010) in her study of rock music consumption in Turkey in the 2000s, which has some theoretical proximity to Said's (1983) filiation/affiliation dualism as applied by Karahasanoğlu and Skoog (2009). Sitting ambiguously within the Turkish popular cultural field, rock music has according to Yazıcıoğlu (2010) historically been neither opposed by the State nor a significant counter-cultural force, and unlike other cultural products of the West was never seen as a form or force of cultural imperialism. Yazıcıoğlu considers the extents to which rock music has been deterritorialised, that is, ‘taken from its [original] social context and applied to a new one in a different physical space’ or re territorialised, which involves ‘the making of this cultural pattern one's own by producing a local form in this new society and geography’ (p. 240).…”