Intellectual Disobedience in Turkey

Abstract

Yalcintas argues that the Gezi protests were a spontaneous form of activism in which individuals, dissatisfied with the established ideologies and viewpoints in the Turkish political rhetoric, occupied the squares and streets of major cities in Turkey in the absence of a political party and trade union. The protestors were intellectually disobedient individuals, pulled into politics as intellectual activists with instincts of creativity and senses of humour. The protesteors used untried metaphors to communicate their desires for the future, specifically about the intellectual climate in which they desired to live. © Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2015.