From “Living in History” to “Ghost Town”: Hasankeyf’s Lost Social Values

Abstract

ABSTRACT In 2020, the Ilısu Dam partially flooded the historic town of Hasankeyf in southeast Türkiye. To mitigate the impact of flooding, the government launched a program to relocate the town’s residents, along with some historic monuments and archaeological remains, to a new town situated on the opposite shore. Hasankeyf’s heritage embodied strong social values for its residents and had a central presence in their daily, spiritual, and recreational lives. The mitigation efforts, however, failed to recognize these values, and the townspeople played no role in the decision-making processes. This article examines the adverse impacts of the Ilısu Dam project on Hasankeyf’s social values by bringing to the fore local relocation experiences and discussing the sociocultural and economic outcomes that have emerged in the post-relocation context. As the case of Hasankeyf illustrates, mitigation efforts that overlook local concerns might result in heritage destruction for dam-affected populations.