"A very important book that fills a significant lacuna in our field. It is the product of meticulous labor in the archives and contains a great deal of previously unknown information."—Taner Akçam, Director of Armenian Genocide Research Program, UCLA
Description
In Ottoman Passports, İlkay Yılmaz reconsiders the history of two political issues, the Armenian and Macedonian questions, approaching both through the lens of mobility restrictions during the late Ottoman Empire. Yılmaz investigates how Ottoman security perceptions and travel regulations were directly linked to transnational security regimes battling against anarchism. The Hamidian government targeted “internal threats” to the regime with security policies that created new categories of suspects benefiting from the concepts of vagrant, conspirator, and anarchist. Yılmaz explores how mobility restrictions and the use of passports became critical to targeting groups including Armenians, Bulgarians, seasonal and foreign workers, and revolutionaries. Taking up these new policies on surveillance, mobility, and control offers a timely look at the origins of contemporary immigration debates and the historical development of terrorism and counterterrorism.
About the Author
İlkay Yılmaz is currently an Einstein Senior Researcher at the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institute, Free University of Berlin. She earned her PhD in the Institute of Social Sciences/Faculty of Political Sciences from Istanbul University.
Related Interest
Series: Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East
6 x 9, 0 pages, 3 black and white illustrations
September 2023