The Road to Gezi: Resistance and Counter-Publics in 21st Century Turkey
The Road to Gezi sheds light on the resistance and political construction of counterpublics in 21st century Turkey by analyzing the ‘No’ protests and the social upheavals of ‘We have a Dream’ across different domains and actors in the lead up to the Gezi Park protest. The contributors to this anthology offer an alternative, critical reading of Gezi collectively arguing that the resistance practices of various factions and strata of the working class across a wide social terrain created the uprising. These included: student movements, anti-Hydroelectric Power Plant (HES) resistance, movements against urban renewal, social upheals of white collar workers, protests of blue collar workers, women’s movements, social media activism, new forms of journalism, and direct democracy practices of revolutionary-popular local governments. Finally, this anthology demonstrates that an analysis of resistance and counterpublics in the lead up to the Gezi uprising offers a chronicle of the creative and useful ways in which theoretical analyses of activism can be materialized.
Book Details
Edited by: Gamze Yucesan-Ozdemir
ISBN-10: 1926958322
Year: 2016
Pages: 248
Price: $32.95 USD
Table of Contents
1. ‘The Road to the Gezi Uprising’: Resistance, Struggle, and Counter-Publics in Turkey
Gamze Yücesan-Özdemir
PART l: RESISTING NEOLIBERAL PUBLICS IN 21st CENTURY TURKEY
2. The Gezi Uprising as a Turning Point for Ideological Struggles in Turkey
Cenk Saraçoğlu and Melih Yeşilbağ
3. The Working Class Back on the Stage: Ashes and Sparkles in the TEKEL Resistance
Fatih Yaşlı
4. The Campus as a Zone of Dissent: The Eggs, the Canteens, and the Laws
Ezgi Kaya
5. Sisterhood of the Brooks: Ruralizing Dissent and the Anti-HES Movement
Mahmut Hamsici
6. The Struggle of the Urban Poor: Urban Regeneration, the Right to Housing, and Fraternity
Fatma Yıldırım and İnci Özgür İlhan
7. Women’s Movement and Resistance: Different Women, Different Activisms
Ecehan Balta
8. Public Employees and Practices of Resistance: The Ideology and Politics of Education and Teachers
Orkun Saip Durmaz
PART II: STRUGGLING FOR COUNTER-PUBLICS IN 21st CENTURY TURKEY
9. Counter-Publics and Organized Labor: Beyond the Limits of Bourgeois Democracy
Ali Murat Özdemir
10. Counter-Publics and Local Practices: The Struggle for Revolutionary-Popular Government
Ahmet Kerim Gültekin
11. Counter-Publics and Social Media: Different Channels for Self-Organization and Red-Hackers
Şafak Etike
12. Counter-Publics and Freedom of Expression: New Forms of Journalism in the Digital Environment
Emek Çaylı
13. Afterword: The Willpower of the Class and the Burning Questions of a Unified Movement in Turkey
Gamze Yücesan-Özdemir
Praise
“This remarkable collection of essays shows that the many distinct social movements that took part in the Gezi Uprising of 2013 had all developed in the context of the neoliberal transformation of Turkish caitalism in recent decades. The authors argue successfully that Gezi was not a middle-class revolt, but rather a sign of the potential for challenging the class rule of capital by creating public spaces for collective resistance.”
Hugo Radice, University of Leeds, author of Global Capitalism
“An indispensable political and theoretical chronicle of the variety of
mobilizations that took shape in the lead-up to the Gezi uprising. The Road to Gezi has significant implications for working class politics and adds an often neglected materialist understanding of resistance to the advance of Turkish authoritarian neoliberalism.”
George S. Rigakos, Carleton University, author of Security/Capital: A General Theory of Pacification (2016)
