Multiple neo-Ottomanisms in the construction of Turkey’s (trans)national heritage: TIKA and a dialectic between foreign and domestic policy

After coming to power in 2002, the Justice and Development Party evoked the ‘glory’ of the Ottoman past, seeking to expand Turkey’s cultural sphere of influence to the former territories of the Ottoman Empire – a phenomenon commonly referred to as neo-Ottomanism. While neo-Ottomanism is generally discussed as a component of foreign policy, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency’s (TIKA) intervention in the heritage dynamics of foreign countries was intimately linked with domestic policies. This paper discusses how neo-Ottomanist policies selectively created transnational heritage sites, and how these sites have dialectically become instruments of domestic politics