‘Whiter than White’: Race and Otherness in Turkish and Greek National Identities

Abstract

Despite the fact that living together in the same geographical space has created many similarities for Turkey and Greece over the centuries, both sides are keen to identify, even exaggerate, the differences between them and other ‘inferiors’. This article looks at the role of cultural and ‘scientific’ racism(s) in the formation of Turkish and Greek national identities. Both Turkish and Greek identities have been built on European-ness at the same time as Greekness and Turkishness. Therefore, the national identities in Turkey and Greece are defined within the context of mainstream Eurocentrism, and in that sense the same White European race-ism is shared as the essential aspect of Greek and Turkish national characteristics.