TRACING SPACE-TIMES OF POLITICAL ACTION: SPACES OF RESISTANCE IN ANKARA (1960-1971)

Date

2025-9-30

Author

Gören, Duygu

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The period between 1960 and 1971 in Ankara was characterized by prominent spatial and political transformations that were interconnected: On the one hand, the production of urban space and the urban experience significantly transformed with dense migration, rapid urbanization, and the reconfiguration of the built environment in the city center. On the other hand, this period witnessed diverse forms of political actions unfolding in urban spaces, with mass politicization and the rise of the labor movement, student movement, and revolutionary struggle. In this context, this thesis examines urban spaces that transformed into spaces of resistance through political actions of these movements, in the frame of the concept of space-time. Adopting a multi-scale and multi-sited approach, it focuses on the reciprocal relationship between urban space and political action. It interrogates (1) the role of these spaces with physical forms, spatial practices, and social meanings in the organization, experience, and representation of the political actions, and (2) the impacts of political actions in social, representational, and symbolic reproduction of these spaces. In this sense, the prominent spaces of resistance in the city are identified: Kızılay Square, Sıhhiye Square, Tandoğan Square, Güvenpark, Kurtuluş Park, the Faculty of Political Science (Mülkiye), the Faculty of Language, History, and Geography (DTCF), and Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ). Yet, this identification does not offer fixed definitions; rather, the study comprehends the spaces of resistance in a processual and relational understanding according to space-times of actions, their different forms, and interrelations of the spaces of resistance. Considering both material and immaterial dimensions, the spatialities of resistance are traced and interpreted through movements, routes, nodes, borders, repetitions, continuities, and ruptures. In this way, the changes in the spaces of resistance and in the routes connecting them through political actions, which form what can be described as a web of resistance, are revealed and analyzed in the light of social and spatial dynamics. How these spatialities manifested in the city throughout the period, and how they expanded and spread especially between 1968 and 1971, is demonstrated. Thus, an architectural and urban historiographical practice is presented through which collective political actions are recognized as decisive forces in the social and representational reproduction of urban spaces, and aimed to contribute to the spatial-political history of Ankara.

Subject Keywords

space-time, political action, spaces of resistance, urban space, Ankara

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/116102

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis