Papers by Birgân Gökmenoğlu
Time & Society, 2023
This article examines the temporal underpinnings of hope as a key element of political action und... more This article examines the temporal underpinnings of hope as a key element of political action under dystopian circumstances. It is based on a comparative study of the authors' long-term ethnographic studies: First, an ethnography of the activists for national independence of the Scottish National Party following the 2016 Brexit referendum and second, the antiauthoritarian activists of the local "no" assemblies in Istanbul around the 2017 constitutional referendum in Turkey. Approaching hope as a political resource of transformative action that is created for and within political struggles, this article finds that the generation and maintenance of hope require an agentic orientation to time and more specifically, to the future. It further shows how dystopian imaginations, when taken as critical evaluations of the present, may enable political action through opening up the indeterminate future to possibilities of political transformation. Drawing on and contributing to the scholarship on emotions, utopia and dystopia, and time, we argue that hope among activists against dystopian futures necessitates not only "emotion work" but also "time work". Grounded in our empirical findings, we reconceptualize time work as the collective effort to shape orientations to the imagined past, lived present, and anticipated future, for and within political struggle. We thus conclude by expanding the concept of "time work" to cover its particularly collective and explicitly political uses, offering two modes of time work: narratives of time and collective acts of hope. We believe that this expanded concept will be a useful analytical tool for scholars working on social movements, political action, time, and emotions.
Jadaliyya, 2023
My main argument is that hope in 2023 took the form of “cruel optimism,” where the elections that... more My main argument is that hope in 2023 took the form of “cruel optimism,” where the elections that opened up possibilities for change simultaneously closed down discussions of a radical break with the current socio-political order and what social transformation could and should look like. The cruel optimism of 2023 stood in stark contrast to the hope generated between 2013 and 2017 across multiple experiments in grassroots democracy. The co-creation of hope in 2013-2017 resembled what Ana Cecilia Dinerstein calls “the art of organising hope.” I thus further argue that what set Gezi and its aftermath apart was the constant experimentation with alternative forms of doing politics, the visions of social transformation, and the building of hope in, and for, political struggle. Looking back at Gezi on its tenth anniversary—when global, regional, and national opportunities for change seem bleak—might offer some insights into where we can find hope, or rather, how to actively and purposefully organize hope.
The British Journal of Sociology, 2022
Time and temporality are common themes in the social sciences and sociology. The sociological lit... more Time and temporality are common themes in the social sciences and sociology. The sociological literature on time remains solipsistically empirical, while theoretical elaborations are focused on modernity, capitalism, and technology, through notions of speed and acceleration. Although existing studies on time are imbued with political issues and processes, as the subfield that studies relations of power and politics, political sociology has yet to consolidate a temporal lexicon for studying structures of power and political phenomena. This review situates three recent books on time and politics within a broader sociological literature on time and calls for a political sociology of time. I argue that developing a conceptual apparatus that takes time as an element of power is fundamental to building dialogue across the empirical material and across disciplines. I conclude by offering three avenues for the development of a political sociology of time.
The Sociological Review Magazine, 2022
The Sociological Review, 2022
Social Movement Studies, 2022
This article engages with the question of coordinating action during transitional and politically... more This article engages with the question of coordinating action during transitional and politically volatile times, in high-stakes situations. More specifically, I look at a local assembly that was established to campaign for the 'no' vote against regime change in the 2017 constitutional referendum in Turkey, and how it disintegrated at a time when coordinated action was perceived as the only viable strategy by the participants. Based on participant-observation and ethnographic interviews, I argue that instead of framing or strategy, differences in temporal frameworks eroded the basis on which activists usually coordinated their next steps, leading to an unresolvable mismatch in their anticipation of future events, and therefore, in action. I characterize the temporal dynamics of political contestation in such contexts as a 'politics of anticipation,' where futurity and temporality themselves become subjects of political contention. As such, this article contributes to the study of antiauthoritarian social movements, studies of time and temporality, and to the sociology of time and the future.
Book Reviews by Birgân Gökmenoğlu
LSE Review of Books, 2023
Review of the book The Future is Now: An Introduction to Prefigurative Politics, edited by Lara M... more Review of the book The Future is Now: An Introduction to Prefigurative Politics, edited by Lara Monticelli. Bristol University Press. 2022.
LSE Review of Books, 2022
Non-Peer Reviewed Journal Articles by Birgân Gökmenoğlu
Jadaliyya, 2023
In this roundtable, we bring scholars, artists, and activists together to interrogate the long-la... more In this roundtable, we bring scholars, artists, and activists together to interrogate the long-lasting effects of the Gezi uprisings in today’s politics of dissent in Turkey and to direct attention to their aftermath elaborating on multiple forms of political organization at different times of political contention in Turkey. Our aim is to collate collective and personal experiences, scholarly reflections, and artistic observations in a variety of formats, in keeping with the diversity of backgrounds, perspectives, and forms of expression that our contributors bring to the roundtable. Through these reflections, we hope to contribute to both scholarship and public debate by creating space for creative and generative discussion around what Gezi means, as well as around the politics of resistance, solidarity, and collective action.
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Papers by Birgân Gökmenoğlu
Book Reviews by Birgân Gökmenoğlu
Non-Peer Reviewed Journal Articles by Birgân Gökmenoğlu