REPRESENTATIONS OF MILITARY SERVICE IN CONTEMPORARY TURKEY: A SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY

Military service is an essential civil obligation for male citizens in Turkey as well as being seen as a prominent way of serving one's country; therefore, it is of prime importance for this cultural context. In an attempt to understand how this practice is experienced and interpreted in everyday thinking, an interview study has been conducted following the frame of Social Representations Theory. The study includes thematic content analysis of semi-structured interviews that have been conducted with 51 adults. Results show that prevailing representations of military service and conscripts exist and that most of these representations are related to ideologies of militarism, nationalism, and hegemonic masculinity although representations approaching the phenomenon from another angle also exist