Political twists and turns in left-behind places: reactions of an extractive heartland to changing state strategies

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the twists and turns that characterise the political reactions of some ‘left-behind’ places. Offering a situated, context-sensitive and temporal analysis of Turkey’s once extractive heartland, we unveil a volatile and particularly fragile political terrain and throw light on its contingency on changing modes of state intervention and power-laden strategies responsive to disaffection and discontent. We suggest that this power-laden mechanism that plays down, if not eradicates, the ability of places to transform and thrive precludes conceptions that invariably position left-behind places as ‘vengeful’ and invites dynamic and context-sensitive comprehensions of discontent and agential and processual reconceptions of left-behindness.