Publishers:
Degrowth Conference Leipzig 2014
Language:
English
Abstract: Social movements, as powerful channels of political expression and mobilization, have become global phenomena with potential to reshape societies and politics around the world. The purpose of this paper is to produce an interdisciplinary study of right to the city movements by analyzing the re-politicization of the citizens engaged in Turkey’s Gezi movement. The paper aims at exploring the concept of ecological citizenship. This will be done by analyzing strategies and potentials of the movements regarding socio-political change and improvement of citizenship practices. From this perspective, the reconstruction of citizenship as ecological citizenship underlines the responsibilities and obligations of the citizen in the framework of a sustainable society and in relation to unrepresented or underrepresented collectives. The proposed study draws on the concept of ecological citizenship to analyze new public spaces created by Gezi, and how these serve as platforms for creative and constructive strategies of ecological transformation. These strategies include guerilla plantations, urban gardening, neighborhood forums, protest art, world extension teams for social media mobilization and participatory budgeting.