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Article

Identity in Motion: Migration, Belonging, and Precarities in Mahir Güven’s Work Through the Lens of Zygmunt Bauman

  1. HACETTEPE ÜNİVERSİTESİ

Hacettepe University Journal of the Faculty of Letters, Volume 0, Issue Advanced Online (2025) pp. 493–503

  • 2025
  • English
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Abstract

This article offers a comparative analysis of Mahir Güven’s novels Grand Frère (2017) and Rien de personnel (2021) along the axes of migration, identity, and precarity, focusing on an author who, after living stateless for ten years, first acquired Turkish and then French citizenship. Building on Zygmunt Bauman’s conceptualization of liquid modernity, the study approaches identity as an unfinished, unstable, and continually negotiated process, thereby establishing a productive dialogue between literary representation and sociological description. Bauman’s distinction between communities of fate and communities of ideas functions as a key lens to map regimes of belonging and their permeable boundaries in the texts. In Grand Frère, the forced mobility of the VTC/taxi-driver narrator and the younger brother’s turn toward a closed, disciplined, and meaning-giving ideological community expose the fissure between the desire for security and the material/ethical costs of belonging. Rien de personnel, by contrast, stages—within the rhythms of the service economy—the production, exhaustion, and displacement of “portable” micro-identities through choral narration, multiple focalization, short scenes, and a cyclical temporality; these formal choices make palpable, at the level of experience, Ricœur’s distinction between continuity (mêmeté) and selfhood/agency (ipséité). Methodologically, the article brings together close reading, sociocritical sensitivity, and tools from cultural studies; Bauman is complemented by Sayad’s notion of double absence and by the literature on transnational circulations. The findings show that, in Güven’s fiction, migration yields not a stable synthesis but an ongoing economy of identity negotiation marked by in-betweenness, uncertainty, and rupture. Literature thus operates as a domain that translates sociological concepts into lived experience and form, offering a nuanced and critical contribution to how identity takes shape alongside institutional unravelling, labor regimes, everyday linguistic practices, and spatial mobility; in doing so, it renders the plurality of post-migrant subjectivities in contemporary French literature both theoretically and aesthetically visible. The article also examines form–content consonance, detailing how techniques such as montage of voices, rhythm, ellipsis, and shifts in focalization aesthetically perform identity negotiation.

Abstract (Turkish, translation)

Identité en Mouvement : Migrations, Appartenances et Précarités Dans l’Œuvre de Mahir Güven à la Lumière de Zygmunt Bauman

Cet article propose une analyse comparative des romans de Mahir Güven, Grand Frère (2017) et Rien de personnel (2021), autour des thèmes de la migration, de l’identité et de la précarité, en s’intéressant à un auteur qui, après avoir vécu sans nationalité pendant dix ans, a d’abord obtenu la nationalité turque, puis la nationalité française. S'appuyant sur la conceptualisation de la modernité liquide de Zygmunt Bauman, cette étude aborde l'identité comme un processus inachevé, instable et en constante négociation, établissant ainsi un dialogue fructueux entre la représentation littéraire et la description sociologique. La distinction opérée par Bauman entre communautés de destin et communautés d'idées sert de prisme essentiel pour cartographier les régimes d'appartenance et leurs frontières perméables dans les textes. Dans Grand Frère, la mobilité forcée du narrateur, chauffeur de VTC/taxi, et le tournant pris par le jeune frère vers une communauté idéologique fermée, disciplinée et porteuse de sens, mettent en évidence la fissure entre le désir de sécurité et les coûts matériels/éthiques de l’appartenance. Rien de personnel, en revanche, met en scène – au rythme de l’économie des services – la production, l’épuisement et le déplacement de micro-identités « portables » à travers une narration chorale, une focalisation multiple, des scènes courtes et une temporalité cyclique ; ces choix formels rendent palpable, au niveau de l’expérience, la distinction de Ricœur entre continuité (mêmeté) et individualité/agentivité (ipséité). Sur le plan méthodologique, l’article combine la lecture attentive, la sensibilité sociocritique et les outils des études culturelles.

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References

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Cite this publication

APA 7

Şimşek, B. (2025). Identity in Motion: Migration, Belonging, and Precarities in Mahir Güven’s Work Through the Lens of Zygmunt Bauman. Hacettepe University Journal of the Faculty of Letters, 0(Advanced Online), 493–503. https://hacettepe.hbtech.com.tr/en/publication/identity-in-motion-migration-belonging-and-precarities-in-mahir-guvens-work-through-the-lens-of-zygmunt-bauman

BibTeX

@article{simsek2025identity,
  author = {{\c{S}}im{\c{s}}ek, Beren},
  title = {{Identity in Motion: Migration, Belonging, and Precarities in Mahir G{\"u}ven's Work Through the Lens of Zygmunt Bauman}},
  journal = {Hacettepe University Journal of the Faculty of Letters},
  volume = {0},
  number = {Advanced Online},
  pages = {493--503},
  publisher = {Hacettepe {\"U}niversitesi},
  year = {2025},
  month = {8},
  issn = {1301-5737},
  url = {https://hacettepe.hbtech.com.tr/en/publication/identity-in-motion-migration-belonging-and-precarities-in-mahir-guvens-work-through-the-lens-of-zygmunt-bauman},
  language = {en},
  keywords = {French Language, Literature and Culture},
  abstract = {This article offers a comparative analysis of Mahir G{\"u}ven's novels Grand Fr{\`{e}}re (2017) and Rien de personnel (2021) along the axes of migration, identity, and precarity, focusing on an author who, after living stateless for ten years, first acquired Turkish and then French citizenship. Building on Zygmunt Bauman's conceptualization of liquid modernity, the study approaches identity as an unfinished, unstable, and continually negotiated process, thereby establishing a productive dialogue between literary representation and sociological description. Bauman's distinction between communities of fate and communities of ideas functions as a key lens to map regimes of belonging and their permeable boundaries in the texts. In Grand Fr{\`{e}}re, the forced mobility of the VTC/taxi-driver narrator and the younger brother's turn toward a closed, disciplined, and meaning-giving ideological community expose the fissure between the desire for security and the material/ethical costs of belonging. Rien de personnel, by contrast, stages---within the rhythms of the service economy---the production, exhaustion, and displacement of ``portable'' micro-identities through choral narration, multiple focalization, short scenes, and a cyclical temporality; these formal choices make palpable, at the level of experience, Ric{\oe}ur's distinction between continuity (m{\^{e}}met{\'{e}}) and selfhood/agency (ips{\'{e}}it{\'{e}}). Methodologically, the article brings together close reading, sociocritical sensitivity, and tools from cultural studies; Bauman is complemented by Sayad's notion of double absence and by the literature on transnational circulations. The findings show that, in G{\"u}ven's fiction, migration yields not a stable synthesis but an ongoing economy of identity negotiation marked by in-betweenness, uncertainty, and rupture. Literature thus operates as a domain that translates sociological concepts into lived experience and form, offering a nuanced and critical contribution to how identity takes shape alongside institutional unravelling, labor regimes, everyday linguistic practices, and spatial mobility; in doing so, it renders the plurality of post-migrant subjectivities in contemporary French literature both theoretically and aesthetically visible. The article also examines form--content consonance, detailing how techniques such as montage of voices, rhythm, ellipsis, and shifts in focalization aesthetically perform identity negotiation.},
  affiliation = {HACETTEPE {\"U}N{\.I}VERS{\.I}TES{\.I}}
}
.bib

RIS

TY  - JOUR
AU  - Şimşek, Beren
TI  - Identity in Motion: Migration, Belonging, and Precarities in Mahir Güven’s Work Through the Lens of Zygmunt Bauman
T2  - Hacettepe University Journal of the Faculty of Letters
VL  - 0
IS  - Advanced Online
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/08/12/
SP  - 493
EP  - 503
PB  - Hacettepe Üniversitesi
SN  - 1301-5737
UR  - https://hacettepe.hbtech.com.tr/en/publication/identity-in-motion-migration-belonging-and-precarities-in-mahir-guvens-work-through-the-lens-of-zygmunt-bauman
AB  - This article offers a comparative analysis of Mahir Güven’s novels Grand Frère (2017) and Rien de personnel (2021) along the axes of migration, identity, and precarity, focusing on an author who, after living stateless for ten years, first acquired Turkish and then French citizenship. Building on Zygmunt Bauman’s conceptualization of liquid modernity, the study approaches identity as an unfinished, unstable, and continually negotiated process, thereby establishing a productive dialogue between literary representation and sociological description. Bauman’s distinction between communities of fate and communities of ideas functions as a key lens to map regimes of belonging and their permeable boundaries in the texts. In Grand Frère, the forced mobility of the VTC/taxi-driver narrator and the younger brother’s turn toward a closed, disciplined, and meaning-giving ideological community expose the fissure between the desire for security and the material/ethical costs of belonging. Rien de personnel, by contrast, stages—within the rhythms of the service economy—the production, exhaustion, and displacement of “portable” micro-identities through choral narration, multiple focalization, short scenes, and a cyclical temporality; these formal choices make palpable, at the level of experience, Ricœur’s distinction between continuity (mêmeté) and selfhood/agency (ipséité). Methodologically, the article brings together close reading, sociocritical sensitivity, and tools from cultural studies; Bauman is complemented by Sayad’s notion of double absence and by the literature on transnational circulations. The findings show that, in Güven’s fiction, migration yields not a stable synthesis but an ongoing economy of identity negotiation marked by in-betweenness, uncertainty, and rupture. Literature thus operates as a domain that translates sociological concepts into lived experience and form, offering a nuanced and critical contribution to how identity takes shape alongside institutional unravelling, labor regimes, everyday linguistic practices, and spatial mobility; in doing so, it renders the plurality of post-migrant subjectivities in contemporary French literature both theoretically and aesthetically visible. The article also examines form–content consonance, detailing how techniques such as montage of voices, rhythm, ellipsis, and shifts in focalization aesthetically perform identity negotiation.
KW  - French Language
KW  - Literature and Culture
LA  - en
AD  - HACETTEPE ÜNİVERSİTESİ
ER  -
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