Hegemonic politics of homeownership and formation of neoliberal subjectivities: Former gecekondu residents in Gülveren - Ankara

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

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

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2018

Öğrenci: CEYLİN İDEL

Danışman: HELGA İDA RİTTERSBERGER

Özet:

This thesis examines the new private property regime under AKP rule in the form of the TOKİ homeownership program for gecekondu residents, which initiates home-owning processes for gecekondu residents. Studies by critical urban and political-economy scholars have approached private property as taken-for-granted. By questioning the formation and dissemination of the ‘conception’ of private property in the form of homeownership among former gecekondu residents and its implications for their conduct , this study attempts to give an explanatory account for the assumptions of private property. For this aim, qualitative research was conducted in Yatıkmusluk Gecekondu Transformation Project, located in Gülveren – Ankara, and examined the process of homeownership for former gecekondu residents through TOKİ’s indebted homeownership program. By developing an alternative theoretical position, which is based on the hegemony perspective of Gramsci and its elaboration with Foucauldian governmentality concept, the new private property regime is approached as a hegemonic project of the AKP aiming to re-consolidate neoliberal hegemony. Accordingly, the ‘conception’ of private property constitutes an ‘ethico-political’ ground of the AKP’s hegemonic project, which aims to ‘cement’ and ‘unify’ society into the neoliberal accumulation regime. Therefore, this thesis argues that the ‘conception’ of private property as homeownership is formed through relationships of ‘consent’ and ‘coercion’ between the former gecekondu residents and TOKİ. Moreover, neoliberal subjectivities, as the implication of the hegemonic politics of homeownership on the conduct of former gecekondu residents becomes a re-productive force for such a conception, and hence the re-consolidation of the ‘ethico-political’ ground of the hegemonic project of AKP.