Abstract
AbstractThe neighbourhood forums in Ankara began to convene during the Gezi protests in 2013 and lasted about three years. The activities of Ankara Gezi forums are urban commoning practices in terms of a new set of demands and methods. This paper conceptualises urban commoning practices as method, content, and demand. This framework offers an understanding of urban commoning that is not based on monetary transaction, but focuses on seeing commoning as a social process. Commoning is not ahistorical, rather it is engaged with the historical political potential of urban spaces. Commoning as method discusses organising in commons, commoning as content focuses on the form and meaning of political action, and commoning as demand emphasises the discursive use of right to the city. The case selection of this research enables us to reflect on how urban commoning is experienced in a city under less financial investment pressure, but at the centre of national‐level politics.
Highlights
In May 2013, the urban youth took to the streets to stop a redevelopment project in Istanbul and protests quickly spread throughout Turkey
We find that the forums used three commoning practices in a city, where the urban social movements are less central to the experience of the residents in comparison to national-level political movements, and commoning as a social process is not ahistorical, but rather engaged with the historical political potential of the city
There are institutions/actors and past experiences that have shaped urban politics in Ankara today: (1) municipalities and mayors that shape the institutional framework within which the Gezi forums operated; (2) non-state actors such as chambers that contribute to the Gezi forum networks and practices; (3)
Summary
In May 2013, the urban youth took to the streets to stop a redevelopment project in Istanbul and protests quickly spread throughout Turkey. Both of the studies showed us that commoning as a practice in urban settings takes different forms, which do not necessarily happen at the same time, but are open to change in relation to the specifics of the Antipode. Commoning practices in Ankara, share similarities in terms of happening in an urban setting under the impacts of rising demands for a more democratic everyday life and a collective governing of city spaces for all. Commoning as content was a practice of the form and meaning of political action, including discussions of how to define the right to the city, commons, and collective decision-making processes. The section introduces the methods we used in our research to access the forum participants and to examine the commoning practices used, which framed our conceptualisation of commoning practices
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