Located locally, disseminated nationally: the Bergama movement

Abstract

How and with what consequences did the Bergama struggle evolve from a local environmental campaign against the operation of a goldmine to a broader political struggle that mobilised a set of heterogeneous social groups at the national level? The constituency of and support for the Bergama struggle increased as it provided a 'discursive space' for the articulation of a disparate set of particular social demands neither mediated nor fulfilled within the existing political system in Turkey. As the Bergama movement expanded through the articulation of a number of social demands for changes in the broader economic and political structures, several status quo forces became involved in the struggle against the movement and played a crucial role in the gradual demise of the movement.