|
" Resistances Against Hydropower Projects as Place-based Struggles: The Case of Artvin, Turkey "
Aslan, Ozlem
Nedelsky, Jennifer
| Document Type
|
:
|
Latin Dissertation
|
| Language of Document
|
:
|
English
|
| Record Number
|
:
|
1052592
|
| Doc. No
|
:
|
TL51709
|
| Main Entry
|
:
|
Aslan, Ozlem
|
| Title & Author
|
:
|
Resistances Against Hydropower Projects as Place-based Struggles: The Case of Artvin, Turkey\ Aslan, OzlemNedelsky, Jennifer
|
| College
|
:
|
University of Toronto (Canada)
|
| Date
|
:
|
2019
|
| Degree
|
:
|
Ph.D.
|
| student score
|
:
|
2019
|
| Note
|
:
|
307 p.
|
| Abstract
|
:
|
The dissertation examines the implications of place-based action for a rethinking of democratic politics. The research is based on the struggles against hydropower projects in Artvin, a small city in the Black Sea Region of Turkey. The dissertation traces the effects of the dams as spatial interventions in the region based on the accounts of the inhabitants, field observations, official reports, and academic articles; it maps the institutional structures that enable these spatial interventions and reveals ways citizens challenge these institutional structures. The dissertation offers a phenomenological approach as an important addition to social constructivist approaches to understanding the struggles against the run-of-the-river type hydropower projects in the region. Social constructivist approaches to place-based struggles have been significant in unpacking the power dynamics within which spatial interventions are made possible and are resisted. These approaches evaluated place-based struggles based on their handling of heterogeneity and difference, their potential in dismantling of capitalism, their ability to articulate their problems in more structural terms and their ability to be extroverted and situate themselves in broader networks. Phenomenological approaches enable us to articulate the emphasis these struggles put on the significance of “implacement” as a social and physical experience for living beings. The dissertation argues that the anti-hydropower struggles in Turkey—through their emphasis on protecting “life spaces”— underlined a form of placial ethics. “Life spaces” encompassed both human networks of relationships and their embeddedness in the entire eco-system. This placial ethics challenged the existing cost-benefit analysis and redefined the destruction of landscape as a collective loss. This ethics-based politics rendered participatory collective decision-making imperative for spatial interventions and required prioritization of politics of place over partisan politics. The politics aimed at protecting life space thus redefines the nature of interests at stake as well as the nature of democratic participation.
|
| Descriptor
|
:
|
Geography
|
|
|
:
|
Philosophy
|
|
|
:
|
Political science
|
| Added Entry
|
:
|
Nedelsky, Jennifer
|
| Added Entry
|
:
|
University of Toronto (Canada)
|
| |