A “Magic and Poetic” Moment of Dissensus: Aesthetics and Politics in the June 2013 (Gezi Park) Protests in Turkey

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Attila Aytekin

This article departs from analyses that underline the middle-class character of June 2013 (Gezi Park) protests in Turkey by focusing on the relationship between politics and aesthetics in the protest movement. The predominant form of protest in the movement was aesthetic political acts, which did not bring about any distinction based on class or cultural capital. Rather, the artistic practices and cultural symbols employed by protesters bridged gaps by bringing a large and diverse body of people around a common political position. The June protests constituted a moment of “dissensus” in the Rancièrean sense as the shared position was based on an essential claim for equality of the dēmos and the demands of the anonymous to be seen, heard, counted in, and to partake. The article focuses on the role Second New Wave poetry played in the protests, as the protesters appropriated the ironic and ambiguous verses of the Second New Wave poets to create a unified movement.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Reeves

Highbrow culture may not always be central to cultural capital and, in such circumstances, the distinctiveness of middle-class consumption of highbrow culture may diminish, becoming more similar to working-class consumption. Using data from 30 European countries, I explore this issue through examining three questions: 1) is class identity associated with highbrow consumption; 2) does this association vary across countries; and 3) is the relationship between class identity and highbrow consumption altered when the majority of people in a given society identify as either ‘working-class’ or ‘middle-class’? After accounting for other socio-demographic controls, people who identify as middle-class are more active highbrow consumers than those who identify as working class. Yet, the distinctiveness of middle-class consumption of highbrow culture varies across countries and is negatively correlated with how many people identify as working-class in a society. As more people identify as working-class (rejecting middle-class identities) highbrow culture less clearly distinguishes middle-class and working-class identifiers. In the absence of any class-structured divisions in highbrow culture, whether and how cultural practices function as a form of cultural capital is likely quite different, reinforcing the claim that the centrality of highbrow culture to cultural capital varies geographically.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2911
Author(s):  
Jesús Manuel De Sancha-Navarro ◽  
Juan Lara-Rubio ◽  
María Dolores Oliver-Alfonso ◽  
Luis Palma-Martos

University students consume live music; however, almost 40% declare that they have never attended a flamenco show, an intangible heritage of humankind. Numerous studies have shown that cultural capital and socioeconomic profile, among other factors, are variables that influence cultural consumption, and therefore, cultural sustainability. Considering the relationship between several variables, this paper pursues a double objective. On the one hand, identifying the factors that influence attendance at flamenco shows, and on the other, proposing a predictive model that quantifies the likelihood of an individual attending a flamenco show. To this end, we analyse flamenco consumption by means of a survey conducted on 452 university students, using Multilayer Perceptrom (a non-parametric model), a methodology based on an artificial neural network. Our results confirm the importance of cultural capital, as well as personal and external factors, among other. The findings of this research work are of potential interest for management and planning of cultural events, as well as to promote cultural sustainability.


2021 ◽  
pp. 146879412110347
Author(s):  
Imane Kostet

This article aims to contribute to the literature on power dynamics and researchers’ positionality in qualitative research, by shedding light on the experiences of a minority ethnic researcher with a working-class background. Drawing on Bourdieusian concepts, it discusses how middle-class children confronted the researcher with language stigma and how they, while drawing boundaries vis-à-vis those who ‘lack’ cultural capital, (unintentionally) drew boundaries against the researcher herself. In turn, it illustrates how during interviews with working-class children, manners had to be adopted with which the researcher is no longer familiar. This article calls on ethics committees to more strongly consider how researchers might become ‘vulnerable’ themselves during fieldwork and to acknowledge intersectional experiences that potentially cause power dynamics to shift, even in research involving groups that are socially believed to have little power, such as children.


1983 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 645-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Virginia Gonsalves ◽  
Godwin Anthony Bernard

A comparison of the endorsement patterns on the Protestant Ethic scale indicated that the mean for 20 Afro-Caribbeans exceeded that of 22 Afro-Americans. However, middle-class individuals from the latter group gave most favorable endorsements of the items.


2021 ◽  
pp. 92-97
Author(s):  
Claes Caldenby

Today there is a new wave of co-housing internationally. Co-housing is here understood as collaborative housing, based on collaboration between residents on cooking and house maintenance, a new phenomenon since the 1980s. Sweden has a tradition since early modernism of kollektivhus, collective houses, in multi-family dwellings with employed staff managing household work. In Sweden today there are only some 40 true kollektivhus or co-housing projects, while ordinary Swedish postwar multi-family dwellings have common facilities that potentially would make them co-housing. Co-housing is often seen as a sustainable house form, but a problem is that they mainly reach middle-class residents.


2021 ◽  
pp. 87-105
Author(s):  
Tommy Bruhn ◽  
Joanna Doona

Public accusations often lead to controversy. Accusations have been studied as causing certain types of defense, as well as for how accusing parties persuade audiences of guilt, and amplify an act’s offensiveness. We investigate a satire programme as a strategic act, with a specific focus on how its accusatory rhetorical structure strategically invites certain responses, and counteracts others. We show how a segment in the news satire programme ‘Swedish News’ constructed a complex accusation against the Swedish private school queue system, and against the character of the educated middle class who tend to use it. The segment’s structure places the accused middle class as an addressed audience in three different subject positions, wherein the relationship between them motivates penance rather than defense. The analysis shows how a changing positioning of the same group as judge, victim and accused can perform certain functions in accusatory speech, indicating roads to redemption and opening up for possibilities of reconciliation


2021 ◽  
pp. 089124162110489
Author(s):  
Ara A. Francis

The emerging occupations of end-of-life doula and death midwife are part of a growing sector of personal service jobs. Designed to support, educate, and empower dying people and their loved ones, these new roles entail both the commodification of women’s unpaid labor and a repositioning of the paid work typically done by marginalized women. This study examines the identity talk of 19 occupational pioneers and focuses on the relationship between gender, class, race, and efforts to secure occupational legitimacy. Findings suggest that, in an effort to mitigate tensions stemming from the professionalization of feminized work, these pioneers strategically embrace a feminine occupational identity in ways that code their labor as White and middle class.


Author(s):  
Yanwar Pribadi

Abstract This article discusses the relationship between Sekolah Islam (Salafism-influenced Islamic schools) and urban middle-class Muslims. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the City of Serang (Kota Serang), near Jakarta, this paper argues that these conservative and puritan Muslims demonstrate their Islamic identity politics through their engagement with Sekolah Islam. The analysis of in-depth interviews with and close observations of parents of students and school custodians (preachers or occasionally spiritual trainers) at several Sekolah Islam reveals that they have attempted to pursue ‘true’ Islamic identity and have claimed recognition of their identity as the most appropriate. The pursuit of a ‘true’ Islamic identity has infused Islamic identity politics, and there is an oppositional relationship between local Islamic traditions and Salafism, as seen in Sekolah Islam. The relationship between Islam and identity politics becomes intricate when it is transformed into public symbols, discourses, and practices at many Sekolah Islam. This paper shows that through their understanding and activities at Sekolah Islam, these Muslims are avid actors in the contemporary landscape of Islamic identity politics in Indonesia. By taking examples from Sekolah Islam in Indonesia, this article unveils social transformations that may also take place in the larger Muslim world.


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