Local actors and sustainability in the Kaz Mountains region

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi, Sosyoloji Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2014

Öğrenci: EMRE ŞAKAR

Danışman: HELGA İDA RİTTERSBERGER

Özet:

In this thesis, local actors and sustainability in the Kaz Mountains Region are examined from an actor-oriented approach. The prospects for sustainability are contingent on the positions of local actors in the fields such as agriculture, forest villages, the national park, ecotourism, and gold mining as well as on the interactions between local actors and environment in these fields. Thus, it is argued that sustainability is constituted by multiple socio-economic and socio-ecological dynamics taking place on local, national, and global scales. In this sense, multiple agencies of local actors such as public authorities, environmentalists, olive oil producers, tourism entrepreneurs, and villagers are taken into account by referring to these fields. Ethnographic research methods such as in-depth interviews and participant observation were used in this thesis, and 138 interviews were conducted with local actors between the years 2010-2013. The analysis of sustainability was thereby enriched by introducing the practices, experiences, and knowledge of local actors through voicing them. This dissertation shows the importance of a critical, holistic, participatory, and bottom-up approach to realize sustainability on a local scale. Attaining sustainability in the Kaz Mountains Region depends on local participation, local knowledge, sustainable livelihoods, environmental friendly agricultural practices, community-based environmental management, and inclusive ecotourism activities on a local scale. In this way, local actors in the Kaz Mountains could become the agents for sustainability.