Taksim Square and the Struggle to Rule Istanbul’s Past
Taksim Square and the Struggle to Rule Istanbul’s Past

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses the protests of the summer of 2013 in Istanbul as a struggle for the discursive hegemony over the city’s past. In the context of developing Istanbul into a global city, the administration attempted to impose a vision of the city’s past as an Islamic imperial capital in conjunction with Ottoman imperial glory and neoliberal economics. This clashed with competing visions of the city as an Eastern Roman capital, multicultural, a resident-centred cosmopolis, a theatre of a modernist Turkish state, or a site for leftist struggle suppressed in blood. Gezi Park stood for the right to the city (Lefebvre) articulated through these historical visions.

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