Kaçak as a mode of feeling and being: sovereignty, fantasy, and the undercommons

ABSTRACT

The article addresses whether kaçak can be used as an analytic to understand and talk about fugitive ways of being and feeling in Turkey. It discusses the different meanings of kaçak and explores what the common underlying structure in the cultural life of Turkey is that brings these different meanings of leakage, smuggling, informal/illegal, contraband, and fugitive together in one word. It reveals the gendered nature of kaçak, and shows that if kaçak would be defined in relation to legality or formality, feminine forms of kaçak remain excluded. Therefore rather than basing the definition of kaçak on a distinction between legality and illegality or formality and informality, the article develops an understanding of kaçak that is in relationship with fantasy and sovereignty. In this framework, kaçak points to the forms and objects of life that are on the verge of being captured by patriarchal family, state, and capital. Finally, the article shows that the fantasy that entertains kaçak lives is not about being recognized or pardoned but about being felt: about producing a feeling in (under)commons. It is also about a kind of sovereignty that undercommons aspire to within relations of non-sovereignty.

KEYWORDS:

• Sovereignty
• gender
• fantasy
• fugitivity
• debt

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Uçtum ateş üstüne, dağlansın diye sızım/Sorma halim ne olur, yoruldum anlamsızım. Yağmur doldu içime, açım, sigarasızım/Uyuyor musun anne? Ben geldim, vefasızın.

Suç oldu suç üstüne, her şarkım her yazım/Vuruştum türkülerle, kanla beslendi sazım,

Bir rüzgârın önünde, kaçağım, kuralsızım/Duyuyor musun anne? Yalnızım, çok yalnızım!

Ah dağılsam dizine, uyusam doymaksızın/Sabah olmasa gece, kaçmasam, dermansızım. (Written by Yusuf Hayaloğlu and sang by Ahmet Kaya). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58Oq1lTN5qY5 min.

2 Eventually, despite the fact that the commission brought 500 testimonies together with expert reports that detailed the psychological, sociological, and physical consequences of the tortures, the prosecutor denied the opening of a case against the state on the grounds that the crimes were unpunishable due to the statute of limitations.

3 In Turkish: Bulunması gereken yerden, yapması gereken görevden ya da yasadan vb. kaçan (kimse).

4 In Turkish: Yapılması için gerekli izin alınmamış olan ya da yapılması yasa yönünden yasak bulunan.

5 In Turkish: Gizlice kaçırılmış olan mal veya madde.

6 In 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Turkey. During its reign, AKP applied massive Urban Reconstruction Projects that displaced innercity populations while also erasing the traces of their material World by replacing neighborhoods with asphalted roads, apartment complexes, and malls.

7 See Yıldız (2021).

8 See Özarslan (2016) for how money circulates through men’s leisure activities in Turkey and becomes pulled by big capital.

9 For how social policies are used as means of dispossession and capture in Turkey, see Yoltar (2020).

10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4gc6jjLNnU.

11 For a detailed analysis of the Roboski event, see Üstündağ (2019).

12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WiSq21I3fI.

13 See Rojava Commune’s Film The End Will Be Spectacular for a possible visual narration of those fugitive bodies and the community they yearn.

14 As Academic for Peace, over 1000 academicians signed a peace petition inviting the state to stop its human rights abuses in Kurdistan and to re-start the peace process with PKK. The petition led to a governmental purge as a result of which hundreds of academics have been prosecuted, fired, and effectively condemned to a social death.