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Alone in the City: Gezi as a Moment of Transgression

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In the Aftermath of Gezi

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change ((PSCSC))

Abstract

This chapter attempts to make sense of the ongoing struggle to name/define and give specific direction and purpose to the Gezi protests, an outburst of collective action and mass mobilization that took Turkey aback and prompted a violent and uncompromising response from an increasingly authoritarian government. It examines the emergence and brief career of the events, situates them within (and outside) the context of both Turkey’s protest culture and, more generally the current phase of Turkey’s post-islamist politics and puts forward an interpretation of Gezi as an almost solitary moment disrupting the ‘time’ of conventional politics in a society that is deeply divided in its understandings of democracy, representation and protest.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to my friend and colleague Umut Özkırımlı for having discussed the argument of this particular article and of the broader issues raised by the Gezi protests with me—his views have informed a substantial part of my own understanding of the mobilizations although, clearly, any shortcomings are my own responsibility. In addition, part of the fieldwork underpinning this discussion has been conducted in collaboration with him.

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  1. Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Spyros Sofos

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  1. Spyros Sofos
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Correspondence to Spyros Sofos .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Arts and Communication, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden

    Oscar Hemer

  2. Department of Communication, Business Information Technologies, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

    Hans-Åke Persson

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Sofos, S. (2017). Alone in the City: Gezi as a Moment of Transgression. In: Hemer, O., Persson, HÅ. (eds) In the Aftermath of Gezi. Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51853-4_5

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