Author's personal copy Syphilis and prostitution in the socio-medical geographies of Turkey’s early republican provinces Kyle T. Evered a,n , Emine O ¨ . Evered b,1 a Department of Geography, Geography Building, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1117, USA b Department of History, Morrill Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1036, USA article info Article history: Received 8 June 2011 Received in revised form 22 January 2012 Accepted 7 February 2012 Available online 16 February 2012 Keywords: Historical geography Prostitution Public health Sexuality Syphilis Turkey abstract During and after the Ottoman Empire’s collapse, Turkey’s fledgling public health and social services ministry sought to deal with the increasing prevalence of syphilis—especially in its rural communities. This article examines the emergence of state-led information collection in Turkey during the 1920s and early 1930s and the anti-syphilis campaigns that resulted, and thus explores how the state created a new medical and moral order surrounding its citizens’ sexualities that came to focus its gaze upon prostitution. Utilizing information from official primary sources, we analyze this transformation as part of a broader process of medicalization and state expansion that made syphilis a subject for state regulation. Within this context, moral pronouncements regarding the disease, traditional medicine, and prostitution and the potential benefits of regulated brothels were reframed, represented, and dispersed as directives for public health policy. Through this research, we assess how field-based surveys contributed ultimately to republican regimes of regulating sex work that still persist. & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction From the time of its foundation, the Turkish republic strove for a systematic collection of information regarding its provinces and its peoples. Such data was assembled and employed to ascertain the economic, educational, cultural, and public health circum- stances of its populace in even the most remote locales of the country. Integral to this mission, the state assigned doctors to various provinces as directors of public health to work as inter- mediaries between state and society. One of their major assign- ments entailed informing the state and its ministry of health about conditions observed throughout the territories of the nation-state so that the republic could mobilize more effectively against particular diseases. The goal behind these surveys was to enable more effective policy development and enforcement (i.e., regulation). In this article we examine how the state prioritized syphilis as an affliction of concern, assembled medical geogra- phies that reported data on (and officials’ perspectives regarding) its citizenry, promoted modern over traditional medical approaches, and began to develop an institutional and legislative project that entailed a particular emphasis on regulating prostitu- tion and situating it in brothels for purposes of surveillance. Ultimately, we contend, these surveys contributed significantly to the early 1930s drafting of the early republic’s comprehensive public health legislation—a legal framework that promoted the licensing and inspection of sex workers for reasons construed as both medical and moral. This historical geography of syphilis, sexuality, and public health information collection and policy development in early republican Turkey is based upon our collection, translation/ transcription, and analysis of official primary documents and our review of secondary sources devoted broadly to comparative histories of syphilis and the state (e.g., Brandt, 1987, 1988; Que ´ tel, 1990; Baldwin, 1999, pp. 355–523; Parascandola, 2008). Our research on this topic involved acquisition and analysis of primary sources from the Bas -bakanlık Cumhuriyet Ars -ivi (the Prime Minister’s Archive of the Republic), the T ¨ urkiye B ¨ uy ¨ uk Millet Meclisi K¨ ut ¨ uphanesi (the parliament’s library for rare books and associated records), and the Refik Saydam Library (for public health-related items), all located in Ankara, Turkey. Additionally, while preceding the scope of this study, we were also informed significantly by our ongoing assessment of late- nineteenth and early-twentieth century materials pertaining to public health, syphilis, and other maladies from the collections at the Bas -bakanlık Ars -ivi (the archive for Ottoman-era materials) in Istanbul, Turkey. With respect to this particular article, most of the materials analyzed were regional surveys written by provincial health officials and published as state documents mostly in the early to middle 1920s. As such, they remain in the original Ottoman Turkish—and are largely untapped as primary sources concerning public health, state, and society in Turkey during this transitional Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/healthplace Health & Place 1353-8292/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.healthplace.2012.02.001 n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 517 432 4746 (work); fax: þ1 517 432 1671 (departmental). E-mail addresses: ktevered@msu.edu (K.T. Evered), evered@msu.edu (E.O ¨ . Evered). 1 Tel.: þ1 517 432 8222x153 (work); fax: þ1 517 353 5599 (departmental). Health & Place 18 (2012) 528–535