Episode 49 – Idioms of Normality hosted by Dr. Paul H. Mason

Dr. Chris Houston and Dr Paul Mason in conversation

The word “normal” has only migrated recently into Turkish. So is asking “what is normal?” the best question to ask a specialist on Turkey? In this episode, Paul meets with Associate Professor Chris Houston, an anthropologist from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Chris has been conducting fieldwork in Turkey since 1994. He draws upon his fieldwork experiences to unpack the concept of normality. “What is normal?”, Chris points out, “does seem to be a particularly obsessive question of certain societies.” are obsessed with asking what is normal. In other societies, the concept does not even appear. Is normality universal? Chris shares insights from his work with marginal communities, his work in Istanbul, and his forthcoming edited volume on self-alteration.