Communicating Otherness as Political Action: The Case of Syrian Refugees and the Populist Right in Türkiye
摘要
This chapter question the potential of Hannah Arendt’s political action to communicate otherness for marginalized groups. To this end, I initially examine Jürgen Habermas’ communicative action as an interpretation of political action and argue that his procedural reading is distorted and hinders communication by further othering non-hegemonic actors. Then, I present an alternative reading where the open-ended construction of self in political action as speech provides the tools for communicating otherness in its otherness. Nonetheless, I argue, Arendt’s assigning of spectators as the sole witnesses and not counting violence as political action limit its potential in threatening circumstances. Finally, I test and mobilize those interpretations by analyzing the conditions of Syrian refugees in Türkiye, focusing on the populist right’s discourse, which constructs them as the enemy.