Projections of Xenophobia: The Capitulations, Employment, and Anglo-Turkish Relations in the 1920s

Abstract

Some tensions remained painfully unresolved between Turkey and the Allies at the end of World War I, even after the peace treaty that was signed in 1923 at Lausanne. This article aims to unpack these tensions by examining descriptions and manifestations of xenophobia in post-Lausanne Turkey. It focuses on Anglo-Turkish encounters over employment in Istanbul in 1926, within a timeframe that extends from the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 to Turkey’s entrance into the League of Nations in 1932. The article traces the politics of employment in light of the traumatic impacts of the capitulations, encounters involving specific institutions, as well as broader geopolitical dynamics. It approaches Anglo-Turkish relations in the 1920s as a particularly revealing window onto postwar international politics and stresses the link that was “internationally” drawn in this decade between peoples’ “ability” and sovereignty. Through this emphasis, the article argues that competing projections about Muslim Turks’ ability “to stand by themselves” were central to descriptions and manifestations of xenophobia in post-Lausanne Turkey