Struggles for recognition: privatisation of water use rights of Turkish rivers

Abstract

This paper inquires into privatisation of water use rights for energy production. It is argued that contemporary struggles over rivers in Turkey are not only about conflicts of interest, but also reflect a discursive struggle of recognition. On the one hand, discourses associated with modernisation and neoliberalism construct the rivers as governable resources in ways that are normalised through legal and political practices. On the other hand, alternative framings of rivers are promoted by resistance movements that strive to challenge these hegemonic and power-laden representations of the rivers that dominate formal legal, political, and institutional frameworks. By framing water as a hybrid resource incorporating social, discursive, and physical relations, this article deals with the question of how rivers have become sites of contestation, in which various actors struggle for their representations, and thereby recognition.