CfP: Rethinking Power in Turkey through Politics from Below

Call for papers, deadline 15 March 2018

Anthropology of the Middle East
Volume 13, Issue 2 (Winter 2018)
Call for Papers
Thematic Focus: Rethinking Power in Turkey through Politics from Below
Editor: Elise Massicard
Forthcoming: Volume 13, Issue 2 (winter 2018)
Submission Deadline: March 15, 2018

This thematic issue aims to identify and discuss the dynamics, effects and modes of ‘politics from below’ – a framing that suggests different understandings of politics. The aim is to open up the very definition of ‘politics’ and discuss multiple social practices whose ‘political’ dimension is at stake.

Submissions should engage with one or more of the following themes:
Which are the main conceptual debates on politics from below? What is the explanatorypower of concepts such as ‘infrapolitics’, ‘low politics’, ‘politique par le bas’, ‘vernacular politics’? Is politics from below a residue, or does it challenge power dynamics?
How is politics entangled in presumably non-political phenomena (e.g. personal networks, solidarity ties)? To what extent do visible politics (e.g. party politics, state policies) rely on such informal networks, and to what extent are they autonomous from them?
How are public but also organisational (e.g. party, NGO) policies implemented in practice? How can we analyse the multiple social uses of institutions and public policies? To what extent does a look at street-level bureaucrats or activists change our understanding of policies or politics? Which kinds of negotiations and transactions do institutional and formal policies give birth to?
Which (new) areas are contested as a political domain (e.g. as spheres of public policy and contest)? Do political cleavages enter new spheres of practice (e.g. economy, professional organisations, education, lifestyle, reproduction)? How do different actors reframe issues or actions as being political or not?
What are the effects of these forms of politics from below – do they fuel resistance, accommodation or consolidate domination? How do we assess the subversive dimension of politics from below?
We are interested in historical studies and a critical debate on the conclusions, which can be drawn from those historical cases for our understanding of politics from below today. Our regional emphasis is on Turkey, but we welcome comparative or conceptual work from other areas.

We invite articles, reports from the field and reviews (books, films, conferences and exhibitions) that deal with the above, and more.

Please send the title and possibly a short abstract of your article as soon as possible.

Deadline: March 15, 2018

Please e-mail submissions to one of the following:
Elise Massicard: elise.massicard@sciencespo.fr
Birgit Pour Ramazan: birgit.pourramazan@gmx.net
Soheila Shahshahani: soheilairan@gmail.com

 

http://www.theacss.org/pages/fora-and-debates/657/call-for-papers_anthr…-(winter-2018)

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