University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2007 Eight Karats of Justice: Analysis of the Grassroots Resistance Movement Against Goldmining in the Villages of Bergama, Turkey Banu Aysu Koçer University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Koçer, Banu Aysu, "Eight Karats of Justice: Analysis of the Grassroots Resistance Movement Against Goldmining in the Villages of Bergama, Turkey. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2007. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/216 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Banu Aysu Koçer entitled "Eight Karats of Justice: Analysis of the Grassroots Resistance Movement Against Goldmining in the Villages of Bergama, Turkey." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Sociology. Sherry Cable, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Jon Shefner, Harry F. Dahms, John Nolt Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Banu Aysu Koçer entitled “Eight Karats of Justice: Analysis of the Grassroots Resistance Movement Against Goldmining in the Villages of Bergama, Turkey.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Sociology. ______________________________ Sherry Cable, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: ____________________________ Jon Shefner ____________________________ Harry F. Dahms ____________________________ John Nolt Accepted for the Council: ______________________________ Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records) EIGHT KARATS OF JUSTICE: ANALYSIS OF THE GRASSROOTS RESISTANCE MOVEMENT AGAINST GOLDMINING IN THE VILLAGES OF BERGAMA, TURKEY A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Banu Aysu Koçer December 2007 To my late father Metin Koçer, in whose belated articulation of the lifelong inarticulated I found the value of timely expressions. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As any other dissertation project, this has been an arduous intellectual and emotional journey. There have been moments (admittedly, many of them) when my path appeared foggy, and the weather seemed not the most favorable to travel. Those were the moments when I developed a renewed sense of appreciation for the fetal position. Not a single moment have I been, however, without my intellectual and emotional umbilical cords. Sherry Cable has not only provided constant academic guidance and helped me get through the foggy patches on my journey but also been able to make me feel on top of the world, even at times when blue seemed to be the only color I was capable of seeing. (I still don’t know how you did and continue doing it, Sherry, but I appreciate it). Jon Shefner has been a great source of inspiration and guidance for carrying out field research (Now I have my own slides of field pictures to inspire my prospective students). I enjoyed and benefited from what I called the ‘lavish intellectual feasts’ organized weekly by Harry F. Dahms (Vielleicht trage ich die Entfremdungsgruppentradition weiter in İstanbul). I am indebted to John Nolt for his time and his interest in my project. Without the generous hospitality and warmth of the Yasa Family- Mehpare Teyze, Erol Amca, Seval Abla, Bilgin Abi, Necla Teyze, Coşkun Amca - and many others in Bergama, this research would not have been possible. Not only did they make me feel at home and as part of the family during my entire stay there but also turned a rookie researcher into the most fortunate first-timer in the field. Behind those two-letter references used throughout this study are real people from Bergama and its villages, as well as from İzmir and İstanbul. I am grateful to each and iii every one of them, and apologetic for having to reduce them to abbreviated alphabetical signifiers in the name of confidentiality. My debt of gratitude extends to Ethem Özgüven and Nejat Dinç for generously sharing their work and their experiences with me, and making valuable suggestions at the research stage of my dissertation project; as well as to Okan Düzyol for providing useful reference material. This dissertation would have been incomplete without the transoceanic, skillful touch on the tables and figures by Müge Koçer Coşkun. My thanks are also due to Necati Başer for his helpful comments on a draft chapter; to Ülkü Karabulut for sharing in and understanding my world at the most critical stage of this project; and to the caring Reisman family, Rosalind, Marlene, Stephen, Jenny, Milton and Judith, for being there for me when it mattered most. I am infinitely indebted to Arzu Koçer Başer (Olmazsa Olmazım), my sine qua non; Ada Başer (Biriciğim), the manifestation of joy; Müge Koçer Coşkun (Küçüğüm), my confidant and source of laughter; Semral Koçer, the embodiment of generosity; David Reisman, my existential consultant and companion who, despite Jean Paul, came to represent for me the antithesis of ‘L’enfer, c’est les autres’, deconstructing my apprehended line between ‘the self’ and ‘the other’; Lara Winner, my friend and indispensable linguistic advisor; Mutlu Yasa and Ebru Okan, can dostlarım; for giving meaning to my being in the world. Without the friendship, moral support, and sheer existence of all these beautiful people in my life this dissertation and I would have been less. To all of you I thank, in every expressive and expressible sense of the word. iv ABSTRACT This study explores and analyzes the grassroots movement against goldmining in the villages of Bergama, Turkey. The struggle of Bergama villagers started out as a local ecological resistance movement in the early 1990s and gradually transformed into an environmental justice movement with national implications when activists adopted a rights-based discourse by incorporating into their claims the notions of justice, democratic participation, and citizenship rights. Since goldmining investment in Bergama was a manifestation of significant shifts in the global corporate mining industry starting in the 1980s, and of changes in the world political economy, an account of these shifts is presented as the global political-economic background for the grassroots resistance movement in Bergama. This global perspective is complemented by an account of the domestic socio-economic and political context in which the Bergama villagers’ resistance movement unfolded. The study employs two reference frames for the conceptual and theoretical analysis of the Bergama villagers’ movement. The Environmental Justice Movement (EJM) Literature is reviewed for conceptual clues pertaining to the transformation process of the movement under investigation. As the theoretical reference frame, the New Social Movements (NSM) approach to contemporary social movements is employed in an attempt to assess the applicability of this theoretical approach to the resistance movement of Bergama villagers, as well as the EJM in the United States. NSM theories are inadequate in explaining these movements. Based on the weaknesses of the NSM and the similarities identified between the Bergama villagers’ movement and the EJM, I assert that a new approach to theorizing social movements, which takes as its point of departure these similarities, is necessary. I argue that such an approach will guide not only social movement scholars in understanding ecological grassroots movements in the global North and South but also movement activists in their struggle for social change. In contrast, an exclusive focus on the distinctions between the ecological grassroots movements in the global South, on the one hand, and in the North, on the other, based merely on their economic and cultural differences, will be counter- productive in challenging the systemic root causes of ecological problems plaguing the people of the world today. v PROLOGUE: GOLD IN GLOBAL HISTORICAL CONTEXT …..They are astonished that gold, which has so few practical uses, is now everywhere valued so highly by human beings that people themselves are thought to be worth much less than gold, though the value of gold derives entirely from the uses to which people put it. Thomas More – Utopia (1516) At the crossroads of two continents, Europe and Asia, lies Anatolia1, the birthplace of numerous ancient civilizations and the home of prominent thinkers such as Homer, Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Herodotus, Heraclides, and Strabo. From ancient times, each generation in these lands grew up hearing the legends of the vast riches