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Article Citation - WoS: 6Citation - Scopus: 8What Comes After Repression? the Hegemonic Contestation in the Gold-Mining Field in Turkey(Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, 2018) Ozen, Hayriye; Ozen, SukruIt is widely known that many local environmental mobilizations against resource extraction projects of trans national capital have been repressed by the use of the state force in the late-industrializing world. What is less known is the aftermath of these repressions. Do they conceal all the traces of these mobilizations and lead to naturalization of the extractive operations of transnational capital at the local spaces? We address this question by examining two subsequent local environmental mobilizations in Turkey against gold-mining MNCs. Drawing on Laclauian insights on political struggles and hegemony, we first conceptualize repression of dissent not only as the repression of dissidents or protesters, but also that of protest discourse. Then, we argue that the forceful repression of the actors of those mobilizations succeeding to articulate an appealing protest discourse can make the hegemony and domination of transnational capital at the local level highly fragile, thus providing the conditions of possibility of subsequent similar mobilizations. The protest discourse constituted through such mobilizations may sediment despite the repression of protesters and become highly influential on the discursive trajectory of subsequent mobilizations. Yet, such an influence, as we also demonstrate in this study, may not only enable subsequent movements, but also limit their hegemonic capabilities.Article Citation - WoS: 23Citation - Scopus: 22What Makes Locals Protesters? a Discursive Analysis of Two Cases in Gold-Mining Industry in Turkey(Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, 2017) Ozen, Hayriye; Ozen, SukruThis study addresses the question why a struggle emerges between local communities and mining MNCs. Many studies in the extant literature tend to explain the emergence of these struggles by relying on some "objective conditions" such as the characteristics of the industry, strategies of companies, features of community, and governmental policies. Drawing on Foucauldian and Laclauian insights, we argue that the analysis of such struggles should rather focus on meaning-making processes, through which each party to a struggle articulates surrounding conditions in particular ways, thereby giving shape to new meanings and identities. By comparatively examining Efemcukuru and copler goldmine cases from Turkey, in which a struggle emerges in the former but not in the latter in spite of similar conditions, we demonstrate that the emergence of struggles is mainly due to the construction of rival discourses that construct the issues of mining, environment, and development in highly different ways. We argue that already-prevalent conditions play a role in the emergence of struggles to the extent that they are employed, framed, and refrained in the rival anti-mining and pro-mining discourses. The argument goes further that the availability of anti-mining discourse when the local meaning systems are dislocated by the arrival of MNCs, as well as its popular appeal at the local level are critical in the emergence of local mobilizations against gold-mining. Finally, emphasis is put on the relational nature of struggle processes, where anti-mining and pro-mining discourses are mutually constituted and reconstituted through a constant reformulation of hegemonic strategies. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
