Asimetrik Bir Siyasal Alan ve Bir Erkeklik Asimetrisi Olarak Definecilik
Treasure Hunting as an Asymmetric Political Field and an Asymmetry of Masculinity

Summary/Abstract: This study approaches archaeology not as a purely scientific discipline, but as a highly complex process linked to development projects and the historical paradigm of nationbuilding. Treasure hunting is analysed not simply as a criminal activity, but as a homo-social and androcentric field related to other forms of masculinity. In this context, the forms of sovereignty established by the political sphere and “Statesmen” over the land, and the folkloric and occult practices developed by treasure hunters to participate in this hegemonic struggle, are examined in relation to other forms of masculinity. Within this relationship, the ‘Statesman’ and the treasure hunter are evaluated as asymmetrically related to each other, and the traces of this relationship are analysed through mythopoetic, adventurous masculinity archetypes. The study analyses treasure hunting as a compensatory hegemonic practice emerging at the intersection of capitalist crises, patriarchal social structures, and a broader crisis of masculinity. In doing so, both the nation-state’s modes of appropriating and governing the past and the treasure hunter’s claims to alternative histories and property are interpreted as manifestations of the same androcentric symbolic order operating at different scales. Within this framework, the study seeks to render visible an overlooked intersectional field within the literature on politics and masculinity This study is a qualitative fieldwork study based on the ethnographic data from the author's fieldwork in the provinces of Burdur and Antalya.

• Details
• Contents