Going A Little Slower to Belong

Abstract

In Istanbul, a city that is undeniably shaped by bodies of water, boats constitute ethnographic sites to observe the multiple processes of community-making. By looking at the time travelled on boats en route to the famous Prince’s Islands Archipelago located off the city proper, this article demonstrates how different understandings of time and temporality among the permanent (both winter- and summer-time) and the temporary (summer-time only) residents of the islands both define and inform particular relationships to the islands. For instance, to what extent everyday practices of accommodating time – such as waiting for boats and anticipation of delays – reflect different ways of belonging to the islands? In relation to the very specific demographic compositions and public imaginations about these islands as a non-Turkish/Muslim space populated by Jews, Greeks and Armenians, this article necessarily investigates how accessibility to urban mobility plays out in the (un)making of national unity. In doing so, it follows a specific approach to understanding noise, sound and hearing as ethnographic data, and tackles the ways through which non-Muslim difference and diversity are expressed (and/or similarly silenced) in the city. This is how the article provides an ethnographically thick description of the “stigmatization” of these islands in Turkish national and public imagery by way of focusing on the tangible aspects of (spending) time which is often sensed as discriminatory by the islanders.