Gezi: The Making of a New Political Community in Turkey

by Kaan Agartan

Overview

Focusing on the intense aftermath of the Gezi park episode, this book scrutinises the ways in which activists pursued a rugged journey of radical democratic mobilisation in Istanbul, including public parks, neighbourhoods and squat houses. Synthesising the findings of field research carried out during 2014-2016 in Istanbul’s Yoğurtçu Park Forum with archival documents and secondary literature, this book weaves the voices of the activists into the narrative. Kaan Ağartan offers a critical analysis of the initial force of the Gezi uprising and its subsequent unravelling in reconstituting a more egalitarian society and democratic citizenship in Turkey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399525909
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	07/31/2024
Series:	Edinburgh Studies on Modern Turkey
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Kaan Ağartan is Associate Professor of Sociology at Framingham State University. His authored and co-authored publications appeared in New Global Studies, Global Labour Journal, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, Sociology Compass, European Journal of Turkish Studies, Journal of International Affairs, New Perspectives on Turkey, and Capital and Class. He is the co-editor (with Ayşe Buğra) of Reading Karl Polanyi for the Twenty-first Century: Market Economy as a Political Project (Palgrave, 2007). In 2023, he was awarded a Visiting Fellowship by the British Academy. During this fellowship he spent three months at the University of Huddersfield (UK) and co-authored a book manuscript (with Camilo Tamayo Gomez) titled Reimagining Radical Democracy in the Global South: Emerging Paradigms from Colombia and Turkey which is currently under contract with Cambridge UniversityPress.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. The Road to Gezi
3. Mobilisational Democracy: Gezi Episode as Social Movement
4. Spatial Democracy: Gezi Episode as Urban Insurgency
5. Radical Democracy: Gezi Episode as Building the Common
6. Trouble in Paradise?
7. Conclusion

BibliographyIndex

Editorial Reviews

This book is a wonderful and strong addition to an emerging body of literature on this time period. It will make a unique contribution in the reconceptualising of social movements – something desperately needed in the field of sociology.

Marina A. Sitrin