YERELLİK-POPÜLERLİK EKSENİNDE TÜRKİYE’DE ÇEVRE MÜCADELELERİ
BETWEEN THE LOCAL AND THE POPULAR: ENVIRONMENTALIST STRUGGLES IN TURKEY

Summary/Abstract: As is the case in many other countries, many environmental struggles have emerged in Turkey within the last few decades. Although they first emerged only in a few places in the 1990s, these struggles extended to almost all regions of the country in 2000s by voicing environmentally harmful effects of gold-mining, hydroelectric power schemes, thermal power plants and nuclear plant projects. By focusing on the anti-HEPP protests in the Eastern Black Sea region and the anti-gold mining protests in the Aegean and South Marmara region, this paper adresses this question: to what extent do these locally emerged protest movements have the potential of transforming into a regional or national counter-hegemonic popular movement? It is argued that although they went beyond the local, neither the anti-gold mining nor the anti-HEPP protests succeeded to turn into such political agent. Both struggles constructed a discourse that articulated local demands together with national ones, and mobilized not only local, but also several national social groups. However, they could not construct a collective identity, failing to unite plural mobilized groups and turn them into a popular political agent.

• Details
• Contents