2 - Criminalizing Laziness

Summary

Chapter 2 explores how the anxiety of productivity played out in the bureaucratic system, by focusing on how laziness and inefficiency were criminalized in the Ottoman bureaucracy from the late nineteenth century until the end of World War I. This chapter considers the daily practices of the Ottoman reform period as central to the construction of a culture of productivity, rather than attributing causality to an emulation of certain idealized notions of the “West.” A plethora of documents (personnel records, bills, memorandums, and petitions, along with accounts by and about officeholders) show how in these empire-wide offices Ottoman citizens, bureaucrats and laypeople alike, experienced the anxiety of efficiency and modern practices of work. The personnel files document the severe responses meted out to those deemed lazy, slow, and careless. In turn, bureaucrats disputed these accusations through legal means. These processes reveal a contested realm over the expectations and actual performance of duties from the perspective of both the state and its employees.