As a sign of a new urban space: Taksim Gezi Park protests

Taksim is an area which consists of many different objects for analyzing the power's urban domination and the counter practices in a multi-dimensional format. Taksim has great importance as an urban centre. The first reason for this importance is its value as an urban anuity area. And the second reason is its position in the process of creating an urban perception ideologically. Precisely at this point the Gezi protests were against this "anuity" and also "the ideologiccal urban perception". So the Gezi protests can be defined as a turning point in this urban centre by using the city right as a collective right. because these protests were a stance against urban planning which is imposed by power thuggishly and also an important object for analysis and discussions regarding a democratic urban approach. The aim of this thesis is to examine the power's exertions for forming "abstract space" and its domination practices as the causal background of the Taksim Gezi Park protests and the "lived spaces" practices which were formed during the occupation process. In this context, analyzing the spatial language which belongs to power and examining the spatial possibility and resulting counter practices which contributed to understanding the urban transformation processes and the social movement's political counter practices. In this sense the Gezi protests were and still are an important tool for all these arguments because in this process, the protesters did not just create a "protest language" but they also formed a new "spatial language". Also they did not only say "no" but, they also exposed their own wills and choices. For all of these reasons, in this thesis it is aimed to form a conceptual and daily re-reading of the urban and the transformation process through the lens of the Gezi protests. Also this re-reading may be a tool for a new discussion for defining urban settlements through social relations instead of defining and forming them as an object for consumption with the orientation of estrangement and the security paradigm. Besides all this, maybe the new urban approach which was observed by everyone in the Gezi protests, may show a way to re-define settlement areas.