Elitist by Default? Interaction Dynamics and the Inclusiveness of Secularization in Turkish Literary Milieus

Abstract

Nonwestern secularization has the reputation of an elitist project, but poetry milieus in 20th-century Turkey experienced secularization in a relatively inclusive manner. Using comparative-historical, network, and statistical methods, this article compares poetry milieus to novelistic milieus, whose secularization closely resembles the Turkish/Islamic stereotype. This exercise identifies a previously unnoticed role that interaction dynamics play in shaping secularization patterns. As such, western-nonwestern difference as regards secularization is neither fiction nor fate: it involves structures of interaction that may appear anywhere. These findings suggest a more Simmelian direction for future scholarship, broadly affirming the ascendant culturalist orientation in the sociology of religion while revising some of its particular claims. They also call for a civic republican turn: while tempering past scholarship’s vilification of the state, they suggest that a vibrant civil society is the more vital component of relatively inclusive secularization.