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

Nazan Ustundag

Journal of Cultural Economy, 2024, vol. 17, issue 2, 154-164

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.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2022.2159493

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