This study explores the possibility of critical agency of queer subjects in Turkey in terms of challenging and subverting normative structural constraints. These constraints are attested through expansive use of the concept of habitus including class, gender, family, ethnicity and religion. Our field study in which in-depth interviews have been conducted detected two types of habitus in the life experiences of queer subjects: critical and conservative. While the former enables critical agency, the latter undermines this possibility. On this ground, it is argued that exhibiting critical habitus appears to be the precondition of performing critical agency. We conclude that having multiple minority identities, education, and involvement in organizations develop a critical habitus enhancing critical queer agency.
AltınayR (2008) Reconstructing the transgendered self as a Muslim, nationalist, and upper-class woman: the case of Bülent Ersoy. Women’s Studies Quarterly36(3/4): 210–229.
2.
BaşaranO (2014) You are like a virus: dangerous bodies and military medical authority in Turkey. Gender & Society28(4): 562–582.
3.
BereketTAdamBD (2008) Navigating Islam and same-sex liaisons among men in Turkey. Journal of Homosexuality55(2): 204–222.
4.
BilicBKajinicS (2016) LGBT activist politics and intersectionality in Crotia and Serbia: an introduction. In: BilicBKajinicS (eds) Intersectionality and LGBT Activist Politics, Multiple Others in Crotia and Serbia. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–31.
5.
BiricikA (2009) Rotten report and reconstructing hegemonic masculinity in Turkey. In: ÇınarÖHÜsterciC (eds) Conscientious Objection: Resisting Military Society. London: Zed, pp. 151–165.
6.
BoraE (2021) Intersectional analysis of critical queer subjectivities in the case of Turkey. PhD Thesis, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.
7.
BourdieuP (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
8.
BourdieuP (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
9.
BourdieuP (1987) What makes a social class? On the theoretical and practical existence of groups. Berkeley Journal of Sociology32: 1–17.
10.
BourdieuP (1996) The State Nobility. Cambridge: Polity Press.
11.
BourdieuPWacquantL (1992) An Invitation of Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
12.
ButlerJ (1993) Bodies That Matter. New York; London: Routledge.
13.
ButlerJ (1997) Critically queer. In: PhelanS (ed.) Playing with the Fire: Queer Politics, Queer Theories. New York; London: Routledge, pp. 11–29.
14.
ChoSCrenshawKWMcCallL (2013) Toward a field of intersectionality studies: theory, applications, and praxis. Signs38(4): 785–810.
15.
CooperB (2016) Intersectionality. In: DishLHawkesM (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 285–406.
16.
CrenshawK (1989) Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine. University of Chicago Legal Forum1989(1): 139–167.
17.
DiamondL (2016) Sexual fluidity in male and females. Current Sexual Health Reports8(4): 249–256.
18.
EmirbayerMJohnsonV (2008) Bourdieu and organizational analysis. Theory and Society37(1): 375–401.
19.
ErelUHaritawwornJRodrigezEG, et al. (2010) On the depoliticisation of intersectionality talk: conceptualising multiple oppressions in critical sexuality studies. In: TaylorYHinesSCaseyME (eds) Theorizing Intersectionality and Sexuality. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 56–77.
20.
ErolMÖzbayC (2018) No andropause for gay men? The body, aging, and sexuality in Turkey. Journal of Gender Studies27(7): 847–859.
21.
ErtuğrulK (2022) Gezi insurgency as ‘counter-conduct’. Middle East Critique31(3): 221–240.
22.
ErtuğrulKAkçalı-YılmazÖ (2018) The otherness of Turkey in European integration. Turkish Studies19(1): 49–71.
23.
GreenAI (2014) The sexual fields framework. In: GreenAI (ed.) Sexual Fields, Toward a Sociology of Collective Sexual Life. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, pp. 26–56.
24.
HarnoisCE (2015) Jeopardy, consciousness and multiple discrimination: intersecting inequalities in contemporary Western Europe. Sociological Forum30(4): 971–994.
25.
KandiyotiD (2002) Pink card blues: trouble and strife at the crossroads of gender. In: KandiyotiDSaktanberA (eds) Fragments of Culture: The Everyday of Modern Turkey. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 277–293.
26.
KornakJ (2015) Judith Butler’s queer conceptual politics. Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory18(1): 52–73.
LizardoO (2004) The cognitive origins of Bourdieu’s habitus. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior34(4): 375–401.
29.
McCallL (2005) The complexity of intersectionality. Signs30(3): 1771–1880.
30.
ÖzbayC (2017) Queering Sexualities in Turkey: Gay Men, Male Prostitutes, and the City. London: I.B. Tauris.
31.
ÖzbayC (2022) Living like a hetero: southern homonormativity in Istanbul. Sexualities25(8): 1058–1076.
32.
ÖzbayCÖktemK (2021) Turkey’s queer times. New Perspectives on Turkey64: 117–130.
33.
ÖzyeğinG (2015) New Desires, New Selves: Sex, Love and Piety among Turkish Youth. New York: New York University Press.
34.
RuppelEH (2020) Turning Bourdieu back upon social field theory. Sexualities25(5/6): 1–17.
35.
SavcıE (2016) Who speaks the language of queer politics? Western knowledge, politico-cultural capital and belonging among urban queers in Turkey. Sexualities19(3): 69–387.
36.
SkeggsB (2002) Formations of Class and Gender. London: Sage.
TurnerWB (2000) A Genealogy of Queer Theory. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
39.
UralHBeşpınarFU (2017) Class and habitus in the formation of gay identities, masculinities, and respectability in Turkey. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies2(13): 244–264.
40.
UzunD (2019) The intersection of class and gender: an analysis on family performances through coming-out practices of lesbian, gay, bisexual individuals. PhD Thesis, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.
41.
YılmazVGöçmenİ (2016) Denied citizens of Turkey: experiences of discrimination among LGBT individuals in employment, housing, and health care. Gender, Work & Organization23(5): 470–488.
42.
ZenginA (2016) Violent intimacies: tactile state power, sex/gender transgression, and the politics of touch in contemporary Turkey. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies12(2): 225–245.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
