“Neredeyse Bizden Biri”: Türkiye’de Saha Çalısması Yürütmek 1969-1971

Abstract

I first came to Turkey in September 1964. I was twenty-one. I spent two years teaching English, first in a town in Central Anatolia and then in one in the East. By the end of my stay I was speaking quite fluent Turkish. My perspective on Turkey was, and still is, heavily influenced by my intense personal, and inter-personal, experience in Anatolia during those years. I gained a perspective on the country that might even be called anthropological, though I had not yet studied anthropology. I was taken aback by the incredible palimpsest of past civilizations everywhere I visited (and I travelled throughout the country whenever I had the chance), by the dynamics of contemporary Turkish society, and by the warmth of social relationships.