Exploring the Prospects of Turkish Resource Nationalism. Constructing Subject and Places through Hydrosocial Territories - the Case of GAP

Abstract: This thesis sets to interrogate the deployment of resource nationalism in the Turkish case, using the hydraulic project Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi as a case study. While previous research has often determined resource nationalism through state-building and economic accumulation, the thesis challenges this literature by focusing on how conceptualizations of subjects and places are constructed in conjuncture to resource nationalist imageries to build a sense of national unity. Adhering to the post-structural school and Foucault’s versatile conception governmentality, resource nationalism is comprehended as a political discourse organized by knowledge-practices, water-scientific resolutions, discursive imageries, and political hierarchies. As the region in which GAP is situated has historically been depicted as ‘regressive’ in comparison to Turkey, I argue that GAP fosters a developmental trajectory to homogenize the region with remaining Turkey. Through an analysis of GAP’s policy framework, I conclude that GAP deploys resource nationalism by encouraging ideas of modernization, competitiveness, and entrepreneurship onto subjects and places to bolster socio-economic development and establish a greater sense of national unification. However, as these imageries are not pursued by force, the thesis explores the applicability of productive power, where restraining/uplifting imageries of subjects and places shape how these tenets are conceptualized through naturalizing discourses.