A Socio-spatial Study of the Construction of Nuclear Geography: The Case of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant

Date

2025-12-29

Author

Altınok Gökpınar, Ezgi

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The Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant is the first and currently only nuclear power plant in Türkiye. It is under construction in Akkuyu Bay, in Mersin, on the Mediterranean coast. This dissertation analyzes the sociospatial impacts of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in Mersin and how it transforms the region. This transformation is conceptualized as the construction of nuclear geography through nuclearization. Rather than treating nuclear energy as merely a technical project, this research approaches it as an ongoing, uneven, and contested process that continuously (re)shapes places, social relations, and everyday life. In this sense, a place-basedapproach is employed in this research. Twelve-month qualitative fieldwork has been conducted in Mersin, including semi-structured interviews with thirty-eight participants and the participant observation method. By emphasizing the processual and temporal dimensions of the sociospatial impacts of the nuclear power plant, this research demonstrates that nuclear geographies are continuously constructed through multiscale interactions. Thus, this dissertation argues that nuclear geography is not only constructed through nuclear infrastructure but also through the tensions and gaps between imagined futures shaped by political power and lived experiences on the ground. Governed through promises and anticipation, nuclear energy projects produce places of uncertainty, where structural and slow violence become embedded. Overall, this dissertation argues that nuclearization in Akkuyu functions as a form of political governance that produces uneven nuclear geography by institutionalizing uncertainty and liminality at the local scale.

Subject Keywords

Akkuyu, Nuclear Geography, Sociospatial, Place, Politics

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/118245

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis