1st Istanbul International Geography Congress Proceedings Book
Fascism and geography as ideology of authoritarianism
Nurettin Özgen, Saitcan GüngördüThe concept of ideology is one of the most common expressions in daily life. It usually has meanings through a political discourse. Ideology, which is a French word, is formed by the combination of Greek eidos and logos and is defined as “science of thought” and “science of thought.. Louis Althusser, an important theoretician of ideology, states that although there is no history of ideology, he refers to philosophers such as Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis (1757- 1808) and Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836). However, with the significant political developments that took place in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the definition of the concept was largely politicized and came to the fore as the suppression practice of a particular worldview. Especially in the first half of the 20th century, it was widespread in many countries such as Italy and Germany. Strengthening fascist administrations have implemented and imposed ideological production in many fields from education to culture and art activities by diligently laying or reconstructing the basic building blocks of society in order to realize their ideologies. Institutions such as the Ministry of Popular Culture founded by Mussolini or Hitler’s Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi Germany meant to be important representations of fascism propaganda as well as the construction of geographical space as spatial science. These political, economic and sociocultural productions within the space have led to various transformations in the social space and the emergence of different thematic contexts in terms of the discipline of geography and necessitated the re-reading of the geographical space.