ABSTRACT
This chapter takes an Actor-Network Theory (ANT) approach, depicting the hot-air balloons as principal protagonists, or ‘movers and shakers’, in Göreme’s story over the past two decades. Following Göreme’s hot-air ballooning developments over a period spanning 20 years, the chapter discusses various entanglements of the hot-air balloons across three main phases – circa 1999, 2009, and 2019. Within the three time-periods, various balloon configurations – ‘Elite balloons’, ‘Money-maker balloons’, ‘(Un)regulated balloons’, ‘Nuisance balloons’, and ‘Instagram balloons’ – are discussed in relation to their tourism-related orderings and enactments. The section focusing on the late 1990s explains how hot-air ballooning in Göreme began as an elite activity in both its production and consumption. In the late 2000s, the balloons as ‘Money-makers’ led to a proliferation not only of hot-air balloon companies, but also of boutique hotels in Göreme through which hoteliers could earn from selling ballooning tickets to their guests. The rapid growth in the sector at this time also led to the balloons being considered a nuisance, particularly for local farmers. By 2019, the balloons had lost much of their earlier ‘elite’ status, and instead had become fully entangled with social media, which in turn had propelled hot-air ballooning over Göreme into global fame. The chapter thus considers the various ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ of balloon entanglements, looking at how the balloons came, within two decades, to dominate the tourism landscape of Göreme.
