The Resonant Chants of Networked Discourse: Affective Publics and the Muslim Self in Turkey

Authors

  • Haktan Ural Ankara University, Dept. of Sociology

Keywords:

affective resonances, discourse, Twitter, Muslim self, Turkey

Abstract

This study draws on a specific hashtag campaign (#AliErbaşYalnızDeğildir), a concerted activity of tweeting supporting the chair of the Directorate of Religious Affairs in Turkey Ali Erbaş, who had criticized sexual practices outside of monogamous, heterosexual marriage. I read the archives of tweets as a performative site for imagining a Muslim self that forms affective publics. This research is built on two complementary layers of analysis. First, I dissect the thematic patterns of the top tweets including the above hashtag and identify three thematic patterns. Second, I scrutinize affective resonances by examining the circulation of the tweets in question. Viewing through this lens, the present study argues that networked discourse is a dynamic site for drawing the symbolic boundaries of Muslim identity. To have a deeper understanding of this dynamism, this study calls us to pay close attention to affective resonances, as they can provide the potential for negotiating networked discourse.

Author Biography

Haktan Ural, Ankara University, Dept. of Sociology

Haktan Ural is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Ankara University. He earned his PhD in Sociology from Middle East Technical University in 2016. He is mainly interested in gender and sexualities, emotions/affect and media. His recent publications have appeared in the journals International Journal of Cultural Studies, Emotion, Space and Society and an edited book Young People Re-generating Politics in Times of Crisis (2018).

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Published

2021-02-13

Issue

Vol. 15 (2021)

Section

Articles

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