The Road to Gezi

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)