Abstract

Hypothesised as a promising research concern for medical geographers, the therapeutic landscape concept promised to bridge divides between methods and approaches in humanistic, structural, and critical geographies. Despite early reference to ideology and the topic’s potential, engagements with political ideas and identity politics remain underdeveloped. Analysing a range of historical sources, this article examines the therapeutic landscapes of early republican Turkey from the vantage of its guiding philosophy and identity construct, Kemalism. In doing so, it reveals the politicised and ideological nature of many therapeutic landscapes and their place in one of the major projects of the modern era: nation-building.