The pious dissidence in Turkey: Contesting religious neoliberal governmentality under the AKP

Abstract

Turkey under the AKP governments constitutes an exemplary case for understanding how centralized religion, authoritarianism, and economic logic of neoliberalism interrelate. AKP uses state-guided religion to legitimize its neoliberal economic policies and create docile, economized citizens. This article specifically focuses on how pious Muslims resist AKP’s religious neoliberalism by focusing on actions and deliberations of Labor and Justice Platform members. Our discussion, which consists of face-to-face interviews with the members of this social movement, delineates the group’s justice-oriented, egalitarian, and pluralist orientation of Islam and depicts their dialogues with power – embodied in AKP’s domination of Islamic discourse in Turkey. We discuss how group members reinterpret religious concepts such as kader (fate), kısmet (destiny), and sabır (patience) that the AKP uses as micro-discursive mechanisms to create economically compliant citizens. We also discuss the specific frames of resistance they develop in order to break out from the resilience and adaptation that AKP has embedded in its narratives of economy and work. These frames include a sharp criticism of market Islam, a challenge to political Islam and dissent against state Islam. Theoretically, the article refers to neoliberal governmentality and explores its contestation – an understudied concept in Foucauldian studies.

The making and the portrayal of Scottish distinctiveness: How does the narrative create its audience?

“…While political agents can construct discourses, discourses also speak through us, through our human agency, and thereby privilege and shape certain ways of apprehending the world (Korkut 2020). This is what we follow as discourse-to-audience framework throughout this article.…”

“…Moreover, discourses construct the object of knowledge in such a way that they make only certain forthcoming interpretations and modes of reasoning possible. While political agents can construct discourses, discourses also speak through us, through our human agency and thereby privilege and shape certain ways of apprehending the world (Korkut & Sarfati, 2020). This is what we follow as discourse‐to‐audience framework throughout this article.…”

Consolidating and Contesting Authoritarian Neoliberalism in Turkey: Towards a Framework

“…The Gezi protests in 2013 were a landmark illustrating how a grassroots urban and environmental mobilisation can scale up to the national and even global arena, bridging environmental concerns, claims for democracy, human rights, and economic grievances and challenging the authoritarian, conservative, and neoliberal policies of the AKP government. They were an example of radical democracy, including prefigurative and horizontal networks of solidarity, as protesters re-appropriated public space through public forums held in open spaces, popular assemblies, and digital activism (Akça et al, 2014;Bilgiç, 2018;David & Toktamış, 2015;Korkut & Sarfati, 2020;Kuymulu, 2013;Yörük, 2014). They have also given way to a new form of activism and politics of emotion as people started to talk about the Gezi 'spirit', referring to politics of solidarity and building of cross-class and intersectional coalitions against hegemonic AKP policies.…”