The site of Gezi Park in Istanbul, now the locus of mass demonstrations in Turkey, has long served as a spatial center of political and symbolical struggles in Ottoman and Turkish republican history. These struggles were often predicated on self-righteous boundaries, languages, and narratives of political inclusion and exclusion. The June 2013 protest in Gezi Park replicate the same pattern. A younger generation that has benefitted from the economic growth over the last ten years shows unease about the increasingly patronizing, patriarchal style of government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan. Both the protesters and the government, however, seem unable to understand the reasons of the other, and to articulate comprehensive political platforms that can reach out and connect with those who are not part of their respective core constituencies.
Keywords: "Peasants" and "Plunderers" in Istanbul: Spaces and Languages of Political Inclusion and Exclusion