Framing Gezi movement in Ankara

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

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

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2015

Öğrenci: ARDA DENİZ AKSULAR

Danışman: HELGA İDA RİTTERSBERGER

Özet:

The most rapid, unexpected and broad participation example of the social movements in Turkey emerged in İstanbul during 2013 June. The events expanded all over Turkey in a short period of time with the participation of 2.5 million people and imprinted in the memories with togetherness of different clusters of the society, casualties, injuries and a big material loss. The question of “what is Gezi?” will be a contentious issue for the next decades. This thesis examines Gezi movement as a “new social movement” which refers to a discrete set of social actions by their actors, tools, incidences, demands and discourses. Carrying the traces of post-industrial society, the major characteristics of these movements are revealed by their eclectic, multi identitical, rapidly transformative, network-based, non-materialistic targeted structure. One of the most intensive locations of Gezi has been Ankara, the capital of Turkey. Although Ankara has a significant potential emerging from its quality and population, it is also known with its conformist civil servant city profile. Therefore, it is suprising that, Ankara became one of the centers of the violent conflicts and local originalities despite its pacified social movement profile. This thesis tries to answer the question of “can perception of repression create new social movement?” by evaluating Gezi from a framing perspective in the case of Ankara. The major method of in-depth interviews is supported by several interpretative methods such as word frequency analysis in order to scrutinize and understand various aspects of Gezi which is one of the most influential social movements of Turkish history.