The material-affective politics of space: clock towers in Menemen, Turkey

Abstract

This article examines the recent proliferation of clock towers in Menemen, Turkey, situating them within broader conservative and populist efforts to reshape urban space through references to Ottoman-Islamic heritage under the Justice and Development Party (JDP) rule. Erected as urban embellishments, the towers were intended to cultivate atmospheres of historical continuity, prestige, and civic attachment through architectural references to an imperial past. Drawing on new materialist and affect-oriented approaches, we conceptualize the clock towers as material-discursive and affective phenomena that take shape through the intra-action of architectural form, governance strategies, embodied practices, infrastructural conditions, and local histories. Based on field observations, municipal documents, and conversations with local administrators and residents, we demonstrate how the towers generated uneven, politically differentiated responses, and argue that the affective capacities of urban symbolism emerge through material entanglements with everyday life. The Menemen case reveals the dynamic relationship between intended affects, i.e.,those governmental interventions seek to cultivate, and those that take shape through the situated relations of everyday life. It contributes to wider debates on affective atmospheres, populist urbanism, and the material politics of space by foregrounding the contingent relationship between governmental affective intentions and everyday material engagements.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Geoforum, 2026 · DOI ↗