The production of space in Dersim in the 2000s

Abstract

This dissertation scrutinizes space production processes in Dersim – a city culturally and politically very different from other cities in Turkey – by focusing on the actors of the city and their strategies. It claims that the natural and urban space of Dersim have visibly transformed since the rescission of the state of emergency (OHAL) and that this can be read both as a kind of “demilitarization” and as part of the capital’s geographical expansion towards “untouched” places. Until the 2000s, as a result of security measures, the natural space of the city was able to develop relatively undisturbed while the city center suffered from dense housing due to migration from the surrounding countryside. The process of the rescission of the OHAL, which coincided with the coming to power of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), brought with it a series of spatial and economic strategies. In the face of the spatial transformation that the state has attempted to realize through several institutions, non-state actors have invented manners to the extent of their powers to leave their own traces on space. Although the scope and sphere of influence of these interventions are mostly symbolic, they can be seen as re-appropriation of space. These interventions, examined in a wide framework, are related to identity patterns reconstructed by the nonstate actors. Hence, space is examined as a thing that both reproduces identities and is reproduced by representatives of certain identities.