Crafting a national identity: The role of geography textbooks in 1930s Turkey's nation‐building project

Abstract This paper investigates geography textbooks of the 1930s in Turkey, contending that geographical knowledge played a pivotal role in shaping nationhood within a modernising state. This study's critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the early republican geography textbooks showcases how (1) Turkey's spatial formation was reimagined in 1930s; (2) defining markers of Turkishness and the Turkish nation were forged through erasures and breakups of minority groups, and (3) the new national identity was “bridged” to the geography of the newly founded Republic. This paper posits that a nation's portrayal of its geography and global positioning is not merely a factual recording, but also a reflection of ideological and political choices. Such portrayals are complete social constructs, inherently influenced by power dynamics and disputes. Beneath the ostensibly impartial depictions of space and spatial relations, invisible power dynamics and assertions underlie the assignments of specific meanings to geographic areas.