Oyman Basaran, "Circumcision and Medicine in Modern Turkey" (U Texas Press, 2023)
In Turkey, circumcision is viewed as both a religious obligation and a rite of passage for young boys, as communities celebrate the ritual through gatherings, gifts, and special outfits. Yet the procedure is a potentially painful and traumatic ordeal. With the expansion of modern medicine, the social position of\xa0s\xfcnnet\xe7i\xa0(male circumcisers) became subject to the institutional arrangements of Turkey\u2019s evolving health care and welfare system. In the transition from traditional itinerant circumcisers to low-ranking health officers in the 1960s and hospital doctors in the 1990s, the medicalization of male circumcision has become entangled with state formation, market fetishism, and class inequalities.\nBased on Oyman Ba\u015faran\u2019s extensive ethnographic and historical research,\xa0Circumcision and Medicine in Modern Turkey\xa0is a close examination of the socioreligious practice of circumcision in twenty-five cities and their outlying towns and villages in Turkey. By analyzing the changing subjectivity of medical actors who seek to alleviate suffering in male circumcision, Ba\u015faran offers a psychoanalytically informed alternate approach to the standard sociological arguments surrounding medicalization and male circumcision.\nOyman Ba\u015faran is an associate professor of sociology at Bowdoin College.\nAlize Ar\u0131can\xa0is a Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Scholar at Boston University, focusing on urban renewal, futurity, care, and migration. You can find her on Twitter\xa0@alizearican.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies