Humour As Resistance a Brief Analysis of the Gezi Park Protest
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PROTEST AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 2 PROTEST AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS David and Toktamış (eds.) In May and June of 2013, an encampment protesting against the privatisation of an historic public space in a commercially vibrant square of Istanbul began as a typical urban social movement for individual rights and freedoms, with no particular political affiliation. Thanks to the brutality of the police and the Turkish Prime Minister’s reactions, the mobilisation soon snowballed into mass opposition to the regime. This volume puts together an excellent collection of field research, qualitative and quantitative data, theoretical approaches and international comparative contributions in order to reveal the significance of the Gezi Protests in Turkish society and contemporary history. It uses a broad spectrum of disciplines, including Political Science, Anthropology, Sociology, Social Psychology, International Relations, and Political Economy. Isabel David is Assistant Professor at the School of Social and Political Sciences, Universidade de Lisboa (University of Lisbon) , Portugal. Her research focuses on Turkish politics, Turkey-EU relations and collective ‘Everywhere Taksim’ action. She is currently working on an article on AKP rule for the Journal of Contemporary European Studies. Kumru F. Toktamış, PhD, is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Depart- ment of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies of Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY. Her research focuses on State Formation, Nationalism, Ethnicity and Collective Action. In 2014, she published a book chapter on ‘Tribes and Democratization/De-Democratization in Libya’. Edited by Isabel David and Kumru F. Toktamış ‘Everywhere Taksim’ Sowing the Seeds for a New Turkey at Gezi ISBN: 978-90-8964-807-5 AUP.nl 9 7 8 9 0 8 9 6 4 8 0 7 5 ‘Everywhere Taksim’ Protest and Social Movements Recent years have seen an explosion of protest movements around the world, and academic theories are racing to catch up with them. This series aims to further our understanding of the origins, dealings, decisions, and outcomes of social movements by fostering dialogue among many traditions of thought, across European nations and across continents. All theoretical perspectives are welcome. Books in the series typically combine theory with empirical research, dealing with various types of mobilization, from neighborhood groups to revolutions. We especially welcome work that synthesizes or compares different approaches to social movements, such as cultural and structural traditions, micro- and macro-social, economic and ideal, or qualitative and quantitative. Books in the series will be published in English. One goal is to encourage non- native speakers to introduce their work to Anglophone audiences. Another is to maximize accessibility: all books will be available in open access within a year after printed publication. ‘Everywhere Taksim’ Sowing the Seeds for a New Turkey at Gezi Edited by Isabel David and Kumru F. Toktamış Amsterdam University Press Cover illustration: Street stencil on walls in Istanbul. The defiant penguin who wears a gas mask symbolizes the resistance against AKP rule and police brutality amidst media corruption. Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 90 8964 807 5 e-isbn 978 90 4852 639 0 nur 697 © Isabel David and Kumru F. Toktamış / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2015 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher. Contents Acknowledgements 11 List of Acronyms 13 Introduction 15 Gezi in Retrospect Isabel David and Kumru F. Toktamış Bibliography 25 Section I Gezi Protests and Democratisation 1 Evoking and Invoking Nationhood as Contentious Democratisation 29 Kumru F. Toktamış 2007 – Nation-Evoking Demonstrations 34 Gezi – Summer 2013 37 Conclusion 40 Bibliography 42 2 ‘Everyday I’m Çapulling!’ 45 Global Flows and Local Frictions of Gezi Jeremy F. Walton Introduction: Gezi and Rumi’s Elephant in the Dark 45 The Politics of Public Space in Urban Turkey: Taksim Square, Proscenium of the Nation 46 The Carnivalesque Citizenship of the Çapulcu 50 Gezi and the Discontents of Neoliberal Globalisation 52 Conclusion: Gezi and the Decoupling of Liberalism and Democracy in Turkey 54 Bibliography 55 3 The Incentives and Actors of Protests in Turkey and Bosnia- Herzegovina in 2013 59 Ana Dević and Marija Krstić Introduction 59 Turkish Case: Political Change and Gezi Park Protests 59 The Common Denominator of the Protests in Turkey and Bosnia-Herzegovina 68 Conclusion 72 Bibliography 72 Section II The Political Economy of Protests 4 AKP Rule in the Aftermath of the Gezi Protests 77 From Expanded to Limited Hegemony? Umut Bozkurt Understanding the AKP’s Hegemony 79 Neoliberal Populism and the AKP Rule 79 The Explosion of Social Assistance Programmes 81 The Symbolic/Ideological Sources of the Party’s Hegemony 83 The AKP’s Hegemony after the Gezi Protests 84 Conclusion 86 Bibliography 87 5 Rebelling against Neoliberal Populist Regimes 89 Barış Alp Özden and Ahmet Bekmen Neoliberal Populism, AKP and PT 90 Depoliticising the Question of Poverty 92 Deradicalising Labour 94 Preliminary Reflections on the Protests 97 Bibliography 101 6 Enough is Enough 105 What do the Gezi Protestors Want to Tell Us? A Political Economy Perspective İlke Civelekoğlu Re-thinking Neoliberalism in Turkey under AKP Rule 105 Re-thinking the Gezi Park Protests: What did the Protestors Actually Protest? 111 Conclusion 116 Bibliography 117 Section III Protesters and Repertoires of Protests 7 ‘We are more than Alliances between Groups’ 121 A Social Psychological Perspective on the Gezi Park Protesters and Negotiating Levels of Identity Özden Melis Uluğ and Yasemin Gülsüm Acar Background to the Gezi Park Protests 121 Social Psychological Perspectives on Collective Action 122 Antecedents to Collective Action 124 Creating a Group from the Crowd 124 ‘We Are More than Alliances between Groups’: An Identity- based Analysis of the Gezi Park Protest Activists 126 Conclusion 132 Bibliography 134 8 Istanbul United 137 Football Fans Entering the ‘Political Field’ Dağhan Irak Introduction 137 Methodology 139 The Political Context of Turkish Football 141 The Hyper-Commodification of Turkish Football 142 Politicisation of Football Fans in Turkey 144 Fans’ Reasons for Joining the Gezi Protests 146 Discussion 147 Bibliography 150 9 Humour as Resistance? 153 A Brief Analysis of the Gezi Park Protest Graffiti Lerna K. Yanık Background 153 What is a Graffito? The Features of the Graffiti Collected around Gezi Park 154 The Role and the Function of Graffiti and Humour: A Short Conceptual Overview 156 The Graffiti in Gezi Park: Humour or Resistance, or Humour as Resistance? 158 Delivering Messages through Humour 159 Erdoğan in Graffiti 160 Counterstatement or Intertextual Graffiti 164 Conclusion 179 Bibliography 182 10 Where did Gezi Come from? 185 Exploring the Links between Youth Political Activism before and during the Gezi Protests Pınar Gümüş and Volkan Yılmaz Introduction 185 Social Movement Communities and Social Movement Spillover 186 New Social Movements in Turkey 187 Methodology 188 Five Cross-cutting Themes 189 Aversive Attitude towards Conventional Political Organisations 189 Ability to Organise Horizontally and to Accommodate Individual Differences 190 Ability to Work with Diverse Political Groups and Cooperate with Strangers 191 Ability to Transfer Protest Skills 193 The Gezi Protests as a Paradigm-Shifting Event with Respect to the Older Generation’s Perception of the Relationship between Youth and Politics 194 Conclusion 195 Bibliography 196 Section IV The Politics of Space and Identity at Gezi 11 ‘We May Be Lessees, but the Neighbourhood is Ours’ 201 Gezi Resistances and Spatial Claims Ahu Karasulu ‘Essentials Are Thus Cast Up’: Space and Contention 203 ‘(New Elements) Become Briefly Visible in Luminous Transparency’: Spatial Claims 206 ‘Events Belie Forecasts’: Concluding Remarks 210 Bibliography 212 12 Negotiating Religion at the Gezi Park Protests 215 Emrah Çelik Introduction 215 The Objects of the Protests 216 The Place of Religion in the Protests 218 The Position of Religious People in the Protests 222 Democratisation vs. Polarisation 225 Conclusion 227 Bibliography 229 13 Gezi Park 231 A Revindication of Public Space Clara Rivas Alonso Introduction 231 The Turkish Institutional Approach to Intervention in the Urban Environment 232 AKP’s Neoliberal Project: Taming the Commons by Taming the City 233 AKP’s Reliance on the Construction Sector 234 Commodification of Culture and Monopolization of Narratives: Branding the City 236 Rewriting History 238 Gezi: Mapping the Space Reclaimed and the Victory of the Commons 239 Gezi Protests as a Reaction against AKP Policies 240 The Value of Resistance in and for a Park: Creating New Senses of Belonging 240 Responses to the Militarisation of Space: The Return of the Commons 242 Conclusion 246 Bibliography 247 Section V Gezi