States of Rumors: Politics of Information Along the Turkish-Syrian Border, 1925–1945

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I focus on the production and circulation along the Turkish-Syrian border of rumors about the imminent annexation of Northern Syria by Turkey in the interwar years. Drawing on Joel S. Migdal and Sabine Dullin’s works on the shared production of states and borders between the “center” and the “periphery”, this article suggests that the study of the webs of rumors and information originating from the Turkish-Syrian border helps provide an alternative narrative about the bordering processes in the Middle East and beyond. To achieve this, I analyze dozens of reports produced by the border authorities and consulates as well as press articles in which such rumors were recorded and conveyed for more than two decades. I argue that rumors played a role not only in determining the way Turkish and French mandatory authorities intervened in borderlands’ everyday life, but also in how the two governments interacted to each other.