Abstract
The attention of social movement studies has so far tended to focus on visible phases of movements, neglecting latent ones. This study argues that invisible mobilizations may be critical in preparing the groundwork of public mobilizations, particularly in authoritarian contexts. Using a process-oriented constructivist account of mobilization which incorporates insights from resistance studies, this article analyzes the Kurdish case in Turkey in the authoritarian 1940s and semi-authoritarian 1950s. Based on in-depth interviews, memoirs, newspaper reports, and official documents, it is demonstrated that a latent Kurdish dissent emerged in this period through the constitution of a sense of shared grievance and common identity both in hidden ways within the submerged networks of Kurdish students and professionals, and in public and visible, yet disguised, ways. Incubating the movement out of the gaze of the authorities within the authoritarian context, this latent dissent formed the groundwork of public acts of defiance and mobilization which emerged towards the end of the 1950s as the political changes encouraged Kurdish dissenters to publicly declare their opposition, and expanded in the more liberal context of the 1960s.
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