Cruel optimism of waiting: precarity experiences of young adults in Turkey

Abstract

This paper examines young adults’ everyday experiences of precarity. Defining precarity as a socioeconomic and affective condition, it offers waiting as an analytical tool to explore the intersection of precarity and the family as a locus of social security and dependency. Based on the in-depth interviews with young adults (N = 52), it investigates the affective and temporal dimensions of precarity that play out in the waiting practices of young adults in Turkey. Focusing on these practices, we show how conditions of precarity foster an entrepreneurial mindset and never-ending self-enterprise while establishing forms of cruel attachments and dependencies. Following Berlant’s notion of cruel optimism, we demonstrate how young adults become paradoxically dependent on their familial bonds and temporary job market to become independent individuals. We conclude that the family as an agent of individualization and normalization of precarity (re-)emerges as the backbone of neoliberal restructuring. However, such familial bonds within the context of fragmented biographies reinforce cruel attachments in which sustaining the aspirations for independence makes precarious young adults more dependent on their families.