Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
Dissertations that have an embargo placed on them will not be available to anyone until the embargo expires.
Author ORCID Identifier
N/A
AccessType
Open Access Dissertation
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Sociology
Year Degree Awarded
2016
Month Degree Awarded
September
First Advisor
Janice Irvine
Subject Categories
Gender and Sexuality | Inequality and Stratification | Medicine and Health | Work, Economy and Organizations
Abstract
Male circumcision is seen as a cultural and religious event and a rite of passage for boys in Turkey. It is surrounded by public rituals and as there is no equivalent rite of passage for girl children, circumcision signifies a crucial marker of not only religious but also gender differentiation between boys and girls. Circumcision is a men’s affair and performing circumcision bestows economic privilege and social status on circumcisers (sünnetçi). In this dissertation, I trace the practical and discursive changes in the experience of male circumcision from the perspectives of practitioners. I argue that while circumcision was always a men’s affair, the professionalization and medicalization of circumcision recast the traditional occupation as a site of public masculinity by positing credentials as a barrier to access. This class-based form of modern masculinity, in different historical periods, emphasize the ideals of rationality and science embedded within modern circumcision techniques. My work unravels the ties between masculinity and work by examining the power relations among different groups of male practitioners of circumcision (traditional circumcisers, health officers, and specialists) mediated by their interactions with families. The medicalization of circumcision (i.e. the introduction of new definitions, values, and knowledge into the practice) was an opportunity for each professional group (first health officers and then specialists) to claim their superiority over other groups and expand their jurisdictions. My dissertation contributes to the feminist studies focusing on the relationship between gender and (professional) work from (neo-) Weberian perspective.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/8994849.0
Recommended Citation
Basaran, Oyman, "The Professionalization of Male Circumcision in Turkey" (2016). Doctoral Dissertations. 730.
https://doi.org/10.7275/8994849.0
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/730
Included in
Gender and Sexuality Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Medicine and Health Commons, Work, Economy and Organizations Commons