Imaginative Geographies of Green: Difference, Postcoloniality, and Affect in Environmental Narratives in Contemporary Turkey

What is it about?

Analyzing everyday environmental imaginaries from contemporary Turkey through the lenses of postcolonial, emotional-affective, and nature–society geographies, this article offers insights into shifting nature–society relations and possibilities. Based on a series of interviews and focus groups conducted in four sites (Istanbul, Ankara, Diyarbakır, and S¸anlıurfa), the concept of imaginative geographies of green is offered to highlight social and spatial differences as central to the articulation of green visions and movements. The research foregrounds several social and spatial gradients specific to the Turkish context, including east–west divides both within and beyond Turkey (i.e., Kurdish–Turkish and eastern–western Turkey, as well as notions of Turkishness and Europeanness). The work also suggests that environmental imaginaries have deeply emotional, ambivalent, and power-laden associations. Apart from the implications of the work for enriched understandings of emergent environmental possibilities in this context, the conclusion touches on ramifications for European Union accession debates as well as new directions for work on environmental citizenship and movements in the global south. Key Words: affect, environmental imaginary, environmental politics, EU, Global South, postcolonialism, Turkey

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Why is it important?

more work of this type is needed on non-Western environmentalisms, and also to consider emotional-affective and political issues that impinge on environmental issues, or senses of how those issues might be addressed.