Ten years after the Gezi Park protests: looking back on their legacy and impact

Yasemin Gülsüm Acar*, Özden Melis Uluğ

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The Gezi Park protests are a milestone for system-challenging collective action practices in Turkey. Now, ten years later, we look back on the protests and their legacy. While the protests started in May 2013 as a response to the Taksim Project, which aimed to remove Gezi Park, they brought together thousands of people, including many who were protesting for the first time, to voice their opposition to then Prime Minister Erdoğan and his policies. Participants were initially held together by their opposition to Erdoğan, but soon overarching identities emerged that increased the connections between groups and created a solidarity that continued, in many cases, for years. In this piece we discuss the events that led up to the Gezi Park protests, the impact on its participants, and the outcome and legacy that they left behind. While the sociopolitical landscape has changed a great deal in the last ten years, the impact of the Gezi Park protests on Turkish society and culture remains.

Original languageEnglish
JournalSocial Movement Studies
VolumeLatest Articles
Early online date9 Oct 2023
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 9 Oct 2023

Keywords

  • Gezi Park
  • Gezi spirit
  • protest
  • repression
  • solidarity
  • İstanbul

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