Dem is Drunk Through the Ears: Sound, Space, and Listening in Alevi Collective Worship Ritual

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Scholars of Alevism (Dressler 2011; Walton 2013) have noted the importance of civic organizations as vehicles for Alevi mobilization against the Sunni state in Turkey. In this paper, I suggest that civil society, while indispensable, is itself an insufficient framework for understanding Alevi political mobilization. Rather, the modes of gathering practiced by Alevis within civil society networks consistently exceed the liberal discourses of civil society itself. In order to think about this excess, I focus on sound as an important medium of violence and resistance between Alevis and the Sunni state. How do disciplined listening practices open up possibilities for political mobilization? Drawing on ethnographic examples from my fieldwork in Turkey, I demonstrate how Alevis respond to their encounters with state-sanctioned soundscapes by cultivating their own mutually constitutive aural dispositions and spatial constructions based on the concepts of “dem” and “didar.” Dem refers to the divine force residing in the words and voice of spiritually mature individuals. It is also the name for the alcohol Alevis may drink as part of their collective worship services. With the idea of dem, Alevis draw a link between listening and the acquisition of knowledge on the one hand, and drinking and interiority on the other. Meanwhile, didar is the beautiful face which emplaces dem within the Alevi collective worship service. Fixation on didar creates spatial orientations also experienced as listening vectors linking people together. Instead of facing towards Mecca while praying, Alevis face towards one another because they see human beings as embodiments of God, and the beauty of God reflected in the beauty of the human countenance. Rehearsed and disciplined within the context of collective worship rituals, these auralities and spacialities constitute Alevis as a religious community and animate their resistance against the state.

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