“Transforming Socio-Natures is a landmark text for understanding Turkey’s socio- environmental challenges. This interdisciplinary collection engages the reader in a growing understanding of the ecological costs of neoliberal authoritarianism in Turkey. Ultimately, the reader emerges with critical tools for building a new historical-geographical framework for environmental thought and practice.” –Anna J. Secor, Professor of Human Geography, Durham University, UK “Smart, timely, incisive—this book is a wonderful collection representing some of the best new work from emerging scholars on issues of changing socio-natures, and environmental politics in contemporary Turkey. It is precisely the sort of book I would have loved to have had years ago, but at least its time has come.” –Leila M. Harris, Professor, Institute for Resources Environment and Sustainability and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia, Canada “Spanning the whole Republican era and a wide range of environmental issues, this book fills a lacuna in studies of Turkey. It provides the reader with a unique vantage point for understanding the trajectories of and contemporary consequences of the vast economic, demographic and political transformations in the country.” –Ståle Knudsen, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, Norway Transforming Socio-Natures in Turkey This book is an exploration of the environmental makings and contested historical trajectories of environmental change in Turkey. Despite the recent proliferation of studies on the political economy of environmental change and urban transformation, until now there has not been a sufficiently complete treatment of Turkey’s troubled environments, which live on the edge both geographically (between Europe and Middle East) and politically (between democracy and totalitarianism). The contributors to Transforming Socio-Natures in Turkey use the toolbox of environmental humanities to explore the main political, cultural and historical factors relating to the country’s socio-environmental problems. This leads not only to a better grounding of some of the historical and contemporary debates on the environment in Turkey, but also a deeper understanding of the multiplicity of framings around more-than-human interactions in the country in a time of authoritarian populism. This book will be of interest not only to students of Turkey from a variety of social science and humanities disciplines but also contribute to the larger debates on environmental change and developmentalism in the context of a global populist turn. Onur İnal is a researcher based in the Near Eastern Studies Department, University of Vienna, Austria. Ethemcan Turhan is a researcher based in the Environmental Humanities Laboratory, Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), Sweden. Routledge Environmental Humanities Series editors: Scott Slovic (University of Idaho, USA), Joni Adamson (Arizona State University, USA) and Yuki Masami (Kanazawa University, Japan) Editorial Board Christina Alt, St Andrews University, UK Alison Bashford, University of New South Wales, Australia Peter Coates, University of Bristol, UK Thom van Dooren, University of New South Wales, Australia Georgina Endfield, Liverpool, UK Jodi Frawley, University of Western Australia, Australia Andrea Gaynor, The University of Western Australia, Australia Christina Gerhardt, University of Hawai’i at Ma¯noa, USA Tom Lynch, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA Iain McCalman, University of Sydney, Australia Jennifer Newell, Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia Simon Pooley, Imperial College London, UK Sandra Swart, Stellenbosch University, South Africa Ann Waltner, University of Minnesota, US Jessica Weir, University of Western Sydney, Australia International Advisory Board William Beinart, University of Oxford, UK Jane Carruthers, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago, USA Paul Holm, Trinity College, Dublin, Republic of Ireland Shen Hou, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China Rob Nixon, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA Pauline Phemister, Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, UK Sverker Sorlin, KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden Helmuth Trischler, Deutsches Museum, Munich and Co-Director, Rachel Carson Centre, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Germany Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale University, USA Kirsten Wehner, University of London, UK The Routledge Environmental Humanities series is an original and inspiring venture recognising that today’s world agricultural and water crises, ocean pollution and resource depletion, global warming from greenhouse gases, urban sprawl, over- population, food insecurity and environmental justice are all crises of culture. The reality of understanding and finding adaptive solutions to our present and future environmental challenges has shifted the epicenter of environmental stud- ies away from an exclusively scientific and technological framework to one that depends on the human-focused disciplines and ideas of the humanities and allied social sciences. We thus welcome book proposals from all humanities and social sciences disci- plines for an inclusive and interdisciplinary series. We favour manuscripts aimed at an international readership and written in a lively and accessible style. The readership comprises scholars and students from the humanities and social sci- ences and thoughtful readers concerned about the human dimensions of envi- ronmental change. Transforming Socio-Natures in Turkey Landscapes, State and Environmental Movements Edited by Onur İnal and Ethemcan Turhan First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Onur İnal and Ethemcan Turhan; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Onur İnal and Ethemcan Turhan to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. With the exception of Chapter 9, no part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Chapter 9 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-36769-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-42969-9 (ebk) Typeset in Goudy by Apex CoVantage LLC Contents List of illustrations xi Notes on contributors xii Acknowledgments xv 1 Socio-natures on the edge: landscapes, state and movements in Turkey 1 ETHEMCAN TURHAN AND ONUR İNAL PART ONE Landscapes on the edge 9 2 The soils of Turkey: nature, science, and crisis (1930–1960) 11 SEÇİL BİNBOĞA 3 A technopolitical frontier: the Keban Dam project and southeastern Anatolia 31 DALE J. STAHL 4 From imperial frontier to national heartland: environmental history of Turkey’s nation-building in its European province of Thrace, 1920–1940 52 EDA ACARA PART TWO State and capital on the edge 71 5 Security, dispossession, and industrial meat production in Turkey 73 SEZAİ OZAN ZEYBEK x Contents 6 Sediment in reservoirs: a history of dams and forestry in Turkey 90 EKİN KURTİÇ 7 Informalization of waste regimes: the entanglement of urbanization, poverty and waste in Ankara 112 GÜL TUÇALTAN PART THREE Movements on the edge 135 8 Contextualizing the rise of environmental movements in Turkey: two instances of anti-gold mining resistance 137 ZEHRA TAŞDEMİR YAŞIN 9 Coal, ash, and other tales: the making and remaking of the anti-coal movement in Aliağa, Turkey 166 ETHEMCAN TURHAN, BEGÜM ÖZKAYNAK, AND CEM İSKENDER AYDIN 10 Moving stills: the idea of nature in New Turkish Cinema 187 EKİN GÜNDÜZ ÖZDEMIRCI Epilogue 208 ÜSTÜN BİLGEN-REINART Index 217 Illustrations Figures 2.1 Photos showing a mapping group at work 17 4.1 Oil painting of the Alpullu Sugar Factory 63 4.2 Photo of the Alpullu Sugar Factory 64 6.1 Photo showing the sediment accumulation in the Ayvalı Dam constructed on the Oltu River 92 7.1 Map showing Ankara’s Districts and Waste Management Typology 117 8.1 Bergama and Artvin (Cerattepe and Genya) Gold (and Copper) Mines 140 9.1 Photo showing popular referendum on coal-fired power plants organized by Foça Municipality 173 10.1 Movie poster, Big Big World 199 Tables 5.1 Changes in the number of imported culture and indigenous cattle breeding between 1991 and 2014 82 8.1 Main features of Bergama and Cerattepe conflicts 147 Notes on contributors Eda Acara is an assistant professor of geography in İzmir Bakırçay University, Turkey.