Protest, Bodies, and the Grounds of Memory: Taksim Square as ‘heritage site’ and the 2013 Gezi Protests

Whitehead, Christopher; Bozoğlu, Gönül

doi:10.1080/2159032x.2017.1301084

Cited by 17 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…One of the AKP's urban renewal projects involved reshaping Taksim Square in central Istanbul. Part of pedestrianizing Taksim involved plans to remove Gezi Park, one of the few remaining green spaces in the centre of the European side of Istanbul, and replacing it with a late Ottoman‐era style military barracks (Whitehead & Bozoğlu, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Names will never hurt us’: A qualitative exploration of çapulcu identity through the eyes of Gezi Park protesters

Uluğ

Acar

2018

British J Social Psychol

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While there is a wealth of literature on how and why people engage in collective action, there has been comparably less focus on the way identities that have emerged (as compared to how they are consolidated or politicized) through crowd action are understood and explained by those who carry those identities, as well as the particular importance of norm formation and adherence in this process. The Gezi Park protests in Turkey allowed studying exactly how a newly created identityc ßapulcu identity [Turkish for looters]can be perceived by the protesters. The present study utilizes a qualitative approach to explore how the c ßapulcu identity was understood by people who participated in the Gezi Park protests, as well as the norms and prototypes associated with that identity. More specifically, we investigated perceptions of (1) the defining characteristics of a new identity (i.e., meaning of c ßapulcu), (2) prototypicality (i.e., typical c ßapulcu), (3) expectations of c ßapulcu behaviour in terms of social norms, and (4) out-group definitions (i.e., differentiating a c ßapulcu from a non-c ßapulcu). We used a survey with open-ended questions to explore c ßapulcu identity and analysed the data from 196 participants using qualitative content analysis. Results highlighted the important defining characteristics of c ßapulcu identity, how this identity is positioned in relation to the newly created out-group (i.e., government supporters), and social norms based on this newly created identity. We discuss the meanings of identity characteristics and social norms in the political context of Turkey in relation to existing collective action models, as well as why we need to examine identities that come about during protests qualitatively.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Names will never hurt us’: A qualitative exploration of çapulcu identity through the eyes of Gezi Park protesters

Uluğ

Acar

2018

British J Social Psychol

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“…This brings up a question: Why, at a time when the JDP and its supporters enjoyed dominant status, was there a need for the museum? One possible answer is that in Turkey there is always a sense of the latent possibility of dramatic political change, for example through coup attempts or as threatened in cases of mass civil disorder such in the 2013 Gezi Protests ( Whitehead and Bozoğlu, 2016 ), that make any regime fragile, however dominant it may seem. Notwithstanding its typically large margin of support at the ballot box, the JDP needs to actively cultivate its supporters and provide identity resources for them.…”

Section: Discussion: Emotional Politics Of the Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%

European Memory in Populism

2019

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European Memory in Populism explores the links between memory and populism in contemporary Europe. Focusing on circulating ideas of memory, especially European memory, in contemporary populist discourses, the book also analyzes populist ideas in sites and practices of remembrance that usually tend to go unnoticed. More broadly, the theoretical heart of the book reflects upon the similarities, differences, and slippages between memory, populism, nationalism, and cultural racism and the ways in which social memory contributes to give substance to various ideas of what constitutes the 'people' in populist discourse and beyond.Bringing together a group of political scientists, anthropologists, and cultural and memory studies scholars, the book illuminates the relationship between memory and populism from different angles and in different contexts. The contributors to the volume discuss dominant notions of European heritage that circulate in the public sphere and in political discourse, and consider how the politics of fear relates to such notions of European heritage and identity across and beyond Europe and the European Union. Ultimately, this volume will shed light on how notions of a shared European heritage and memory can be used not only to include and connect Europeans, but also to exclude some of them.Investigating the ways in which nationalist populist forces mobilize the idea of a shared, homogeneous European civilization, European Memory in Populism will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of European studies, heritage and memory studies, migration studies, anthropology, political science, and sociology.Chapters 1, 4, 6, and 10 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No-Derivatives 4.0 license.

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“…This was clearly manifest in the Taksim square revitalization project which led to the Gezi protests in 2013, a nation-wide uprising to challenge the JDP's neoliberal agenda, authoritarianism, and religio-nationalist discourses. 54 The purpose of the project was to re-build the Ottoman military barracks that formerly stood on the grounds of the Gezi Park together with a plan to demolish the Ataturk Cultural Center (AKM), which was seen as an anchor to Kemalist secularist cultural heritage. This brought the JDP into a deep conflict with both the secular republican legacy as well as the complex and diverse anti-authoritarian segments of society.…”

Section: Cultural Politics Of An Authoritarian Turn 2010s Onwards: the Yeditepe Biennialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creative geographies of Islam: the case of Islamic and traditional visual arts scene in Istanbul

Arik

2021

cultural geographies

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While research on geographies of creativity have proliferated in the last few years, there has been scant attention to religious cultural and artistic practices, particularly in the context of the Middle East. This research seeks to address such gap with a focus on the Islamic and traditional visual arts scene which has flourished in Istanbul in the past decade and a half along with the rise of political Islam in Turkey. Rendered obsolete through the Western-oriented and secular cultural politics since the early republican era, art forms such as Arabic calligraphy ( hat), miniature ( minyatür), and illumination ( tezhip) have now found currency as ‘authentically Turkish and Islamic’ in an art scene that emerged alongside Islamist politics. This paper examines the trajectory of Islamic and traditional visual arts through the lens of cultural and creative industries starting from the cultural politics of Islamic urban governance through the 1990s and 2000s, and to the emergence of an Islamist-nationalist authoritarianism in the past decade. In doing so, it aims to situate Islamic and traditional visual arts on the map in studies on geographies of creativity, particularly in the Middle Eastern and Islamic context, where limited attention has been paid to cultural and artistic practices. With ethnographic reflections from the field, it highlights the internal dynamics of an art scene and the potential it bears in unsettling the core concepts of Turkish Islamic nationalism from within.

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Protest, Bodies, and the Grounds of Memory: Taksim Square as ‘heritage site’ and the 2013 Gezi Protests

Cited by 17 publications

References 25 publications

‘Names will never hurt us’: A qualitative exploration of çapulcu identity through the eyes of Gezi Park protesters

‘Names will never hurt us’: A qualitative exploration of çapulcu identity through the eyes of Gezi Park protesters

European Memory in Populism

Creative geographies of Islam: the case of Islamic and traditional visual arts scene in Istanbul

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