Location! location! location! (and transnational capital) : reframing peripherality as opportunity at an Istanbul kebab shop

Abstract

Focusing on identity construction through language choice (Bucholtz and Hall 2005), this chapter examines center-periphery relations by analyzing discourses about Turkish-only workplace language policies among the staff of a peripherally located Kurdish-run restaurant, a perspective that complements Schluter’s (2020) analysis of these policies at this restaurant’s centrally located counterparts. Extracts from interviews with three managers/workers address ideologies and capital as central influences on identity formation (Darvin and Norton 2015), indicating the capacity for trans-national ideologies to mitigate the effects of marginalizing, state-produced discourses. Capital legitimizes these ideologies and strengthens the kebab shop’s ability to deviate from the center’s norms, a finding that partially aligns with other non-centrally oriented peripheries (cf. Hiss 2017; Petrović 2018) and motivates a reconceptualization of the periphery.