Sleep as in/dispensable deceleration for acceleration: the ambivalent relation between social acceleration and sleep patterns of the white-collar employees in İstanbul

ABSTRACT Capitalism today tries to take advantage of sleep while reducing its duration. The expansion of flexible work regimes into other fields of life spreads the effects of social acceleration. Acceleration is in line with deceleration. Sleep can be a limit to acceleration or can be a necessary deceleration of the body for further acceleration. On the one hand, due to the requirements and desires inside and outside work, sleep is more vulnerable to time pressure. On the other hand, lack of or unhealthy sleep is seen as an obstacle before enriched participation in waking life. The tension between the economic and cultural drivers of social acceleration is perpetuated by its structural motor, which generates an ambivalent position for the sleep of white-collar employees. This renders sleep both dispensable and indispensable at the same time.