The Road to Gezi Resistance and Counter-Publics in 21st Century Turkey

Description

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.

Endorsements

"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 (2014)

"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 Pacifi cation (2016)