Clemson University TigerPrints All Dissertations Dissertations 5-2018 Dis/Orienting 'Middle East': A Cart-Rhetorical Rhizomatic Mapping Eda Ozyesilpinar Clemson University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_dissertations Recommended Citation Ozyesilpinar, Eda, "Dis/Orienting 'Middle East': A Cart-Rhetorical Rhizomatic Mapping" (2018). All Dissertations. 2117. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/2117 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DIS/ORIENTING ‘MIDDLE EAST’: A CART-RHETORICAL RHIZOMATIC MAPPING A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design by Eda Ozyesilpinar May 2018 Accepted by: Dr. Cynthia Haynes, Committee Chair Dr. Victor Vitanza Dr. James Spencer Dr. Amit Bein ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses on the association between the geopolitical region Middle East and the unjust profiling of Islamic terrorism. I examine this connection from the lens of border- politics and deconstruct Western cartographic discourses that constructed the current misrepresentative and extensively totalizing identity of Middle East as the land of Muslim terrorists. My conjecture is framed around Karen Culcasi’s argument on how Middle East was re- invented in the discourse of Orientalism during the early twentieth century. To challenge the region’s current misrepresentative and unjust socio-spatial identity, I map how the region’s inherently othered identity under the European gaze of Orientalism has arrived to its current state as a result of changing discourses of power and geopolitical relations throughout the twentieth century. In this light, I investigate three central questions in this dissertation: 1) How the discourse of global war on terrorism has emerged from the haunting image of the Oriental discourse and continues to respond and counter-respond to the great Middle Eastern question: continuous reproductions of the region in the totalizing image of the Western tree- system. 2) How this continual process of reproducing Middle East in the same problematic rhetoric has mirrored itself into re-constructing the cartographic reality of the region both in its Western perceptions and Middle/Eastern receptions: internalization of the Western tree-image and finally arriving to the Islamic tree-system of a violent and fundamental ideology of terrorism. 3) How these cartographic reproductions have been suppressing the diverse identities in the region while these socio-spatial formations have always already been disrupting various systems of subordinations: how the internalized tree-system of the West and its tap-roots have been cutting the lines and paths of the rhizomatic identities of the region. ii As I unpack these three questions, I approach the Western modern scientific knowledge production and information design (dominant mode of production) as a form of alienating rhetorical re-invention. I best understand the working structure of the Western rhetoric of alienation through Walter Benjamin’s notion of ‘mechanical reproduction.’ I draw from cartographic hermeneutics and cartographic deconstruction to unpack how the Western ground logic of this machinic system has been re-inventing the socio-spatial consciousness of Middle East. I argue that the unjust image of Middle East as the land of Muslim terrorists has been another process for Western society to re-define its non-Western other. I define the mapping of this project as a dis/orienting rhizomatic mapping which draws from Deleuze and Guattari’s models of rhizome and tree-system. As I analyze the shifting discourses to map the shifting borders, changing names, and transforming otherness of Middle East, I approach the Western process of re-inventing and homogenizing Middle East as a tree- system while I read the region’s organic heterogeneity and complex relations of meaning-making as rhizomatic. In this light, I conduct a carto-rhetorical deconstruction on the cartographic discourses (maps of dominant gaze) representing Middle East with a focus on the rhetorical and narrative qualities of maps as technical documents. The central agenda is to dis/other the geography of Middle East by mapping with its rhizomatic socio-spatial identities and to write an anti-memory challenging the Islamic stereotypes and prejudices that have been produced in the dominant vision and discourses of alienation, enemization, and victimization of the region iii DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to all the amazing women who shaped me as the writer that I am today. I share the degree with my mother who always supported me, with my sister who always believed in me, and with my father who set an example for me. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Cynthia, thank you for believing in me; thank you for your kindness and support; thank you for listening me with patience every time I lost hope in myself, in my writing. Thank you for being one of the amazing women who always bring me to writing. Thank you for inspiring me and always showing me the light. Victor, thank you for your wisdom and constant support; thank you for seeing value in my research and writing. Thank you for understanding and respecting my thinking and my voice. Thank you for always encouraging me to do what I believe in and thank you for letting me be brave and take risks in my work and writing. James, thank you for expanding my vision, challenging my thinking, and supporting me to improve my research. Thank you for our conversations and thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience with me. Amit, thank you for the invaluable insights you provided me in my research. Thank you for respecting my vision and helping me to improve myself as a scholar and critical thinker. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with me. Susan, thank you for always believing in me and supporting me. Thank you for your wisdom and friendship. Thank you for encouraging me to do the things that I would never think that I was capable of. You are one of the reasons I am where I am today. Data, Dina, and Firasat, thank you for being amazing friends and great role models for me. Thank you for our great conversations. You make me believe that I can do anything. You give me strength and hope. You are amazing women who bring me to writing. Whitney, Charlotte, and Diane, thank for you being amazing friends. Thank you for being there for me and listening me going on and on as I talked about my research. You are great friends and amazing women who bring me to writing. v Alison and Angela, thank you for your friendship, your smiling faces, and constant support. You are amazing women who bring me to writing. My cohort, Nathan Riggs, Joshua Wood, Samuel Fuller, Daniel Frank, and Firasat Jabeen, thank you for always being there for me. Thank you for becoming and being my friends. I could not imagine finishing this degree without all of you. I am honored to call you my friends and my colleagues. My two amazing research assistants, Zemin and Providence; thank you for time, hard work, and more importantly your creative vision. Thank you for making sure to support me and my vision in producing the story maps for my project. My mother, Berna, and my sister, Ayca; thank you for believing in me, listening me, and supporting me. Thank you for seeing strength in me and reminding me that I have what it takes. Thank you for being amazing women who bring me to writing. My aunt, Rana, and my cousin, Gulsah; thank you for your laughter and your love. Thank you for being amazing women who bring me to writing. My grandmother, Nevin; thank you for your prayers and your love. Thank you for being one of the amazing woman who brings me to writing. My father, Ercument; thank you for teaching me the value of hard work and showing me that having an education is more than receiving a degree; it is about becoming and being a better person. Thank you for raising me to be a strong woman. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE ..................................................................................................................... i ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION.................................................................................................................. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................. v LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... ix INTRODUCTION: HOME/SICK BORDERLANDS ................................................... 1 Home/Sick Identities ........................................................................................................................ 3 Call of the Home/Sick Middle East ................................................................................................. 8 Re/Inventions of Middle East: Global Other in the image of Islamic Terrorism ........................... 10 From Oriental Other to the Middle Eastern Other ......................................................................... 12 Rhizomatic Participatory Mapping: Using the Power Networks of the Global