Date

2008

Author

Gürkan, İnanç

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This thesis investigates the dynamics behind the urbanisation processes in ex-rural areas where agricultural economy had collapsed. Being aware of local values marketable in tourism, applying tourism as an agent of change is a pervasive vision. This approach relies on strategies that highlight local resources to compete in the tourism market by making use of technical means of globalisation. It is expected that the process diversifies local economies in order to bring welfare to the entire local community. To this end, a great functional role is attributed to local NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and local governments on behalf of local democracy. Thus, a power process begins in the place subjected to tourism development. The actors in this power process can be effective at different scales like local, national and supra-national. This thesis maintains that the transformation in rural areas cannot be kept distinct from the political processes that result in the transformation of cities. Both transformations endeavour to solve system crises. The transformation in rural areas should be accepted as a process of class strategy that has both winners and losers itself. For this purpose, this thesis investigated the local agents of this class strategy, whereas it initiates the capital accumulation process in cities by the agents of either state apparatuses or market mechanisms. This investigation aims at the role of local non-governmental organisations and local governments in this process. An Aegean town which faced a rapid transformation along with tourism development is selected for the case study because the development was known as an autonomous local movement that was not based on a tourism development plan. The case study was based on qualitative data from deep-interviews with local community members and the actors of tourism development. According to the findings of the study, entrepreneurs that belong to mid-classes of big cities initiated and conducted the development process. These actors, who had more financial means and cultural capital than the local community, represented themselves and acted through local NGOs; then, they examined power in order to construct rationalities of the development in their own favour. These rationalities which were beyond capacities of local people did not result in participation of local people in the development process. Local people only affected the process of decision-making through property holdings. Consequently, capital accumulation process of this mid-class, the main actors of the development, was accelerated because local people sold or rented out their properties in the real estate market developed by the tourism. On the other hand, the local government formed a counter power striving to attract both national and supra-national big capital to the town in the process.

Subject Keywords

Urbanisation.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12610262/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/18140

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis