The Anthropologist Accused

Following on from the previous post regarding the anthropologist who spent several months in Gümüşlük between 1966 & 67 I found a retrospective account of her stay published in 2003, it has all the ingredients of a suspense novel, a marital breakup, battles with the state bureaucracy, accusations of smuggling, association with a suspected spy and explosives being planted in her vehicle.

Most of the chapter is available on Google Books; see the link below (starting at page 77)

Ch 3 “The Anthropologist Accused” from Crime’s Power: Anthropologists and the Ethnography of Crime, edited by Philip C Parnell and Stephanie C Kane published by Palgrave McMillan in 2003

Google Books Crime’s Power: Anthropologists and the Ethnography of Crime,

The Modern Village

A couple of years ago I came across a reference to an ethnographic study carried out in the village during 1967-8. The names of the individuals are changed and so is the name of village, it is referred to as Mandalinci. Although the name was different it was obvious from the maps and descriptions of the area that author was studying and recording village life in Gümüşlük; the findings of the research were later published under the title of Dispute and Settlement in Rural Turkey – An Ethnography of Law.

The introduction to the study contains a short description of the village’s history from around the mid 1800s to the 1960s, I’ve attempted to summarise the history in a new page The Beginnings of the Modern Village  which also includes a couple of references to a short naval bombardment of the village during WW1.