Social movements and economic crisis: The case of 2001 artisan protests in Turkey

The economical problems that several countries come across recently have been resulted in the improvement of protest movements against economic crisis of countries? society at issue. After the global economic crisis which occurred at the end of the year 2008 and economic crises in the European Union countries such as Greece and Spain, the reactions of the individuals affected by the crisis negatively by hitting the street enabled these arguments to gain currency again. Protest movements emerged against negative conditions of economic crisis has been seen in Turkey in different periods. Labor Platform movements and artisan movements which occurred especially after the 2001 economic crisis which is the heaviest economic crisis in Turkey are the protests having such properties.The reflection of the negativity caused by economic crises to the society in economic and social ways can result in the arrangement of protest demonstrations by individuals. The facts which occurred after the 2001 economic crisis in Turkey constitute a similar situation. The fact that artisans as an occupational group speak out by hitting the streets is almost an unseen protest type in Turkey. Therefore, the protest demonstrations of artisans after the 2001 economic crisis, the profile and number of the participants, the role of artisan organizations on the movements are the main questions which should be answered.In this study, the protest movements which were arranged by the artisans after the 2001 economic crisis have been examined. By using the theories of the relative deprivation and resource mobilization, it has been tried to provide a theoretical basis of artisan movements. Another questions tried to be answered is whether the artisan movements can be included in the definition of `crisis movement? or not. By using systematical newspaper scanning, it has been tried to determine the dates and places of artisan movements, number of participants, the movement manner and repertory used in movement. From this point of view, the facts that artisan movements emerged after the 2001 economic crisis and have the characteristic of crisis movements constitute the basic assert of the study.