Landscapes and national imagination: The role of national parks in the formation of national belonging in Turkey

• Main Author: Uzmay Asya Ece
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2019-01-01
• Series: SHS Web of Conferences
• Online Access: https://www.shs-conferences.org/articles/shsconf/pdf/2019/04/shsconf_modscapes2018_12001.pdf

When the concept of a national park idea was first established in the USA, it was promoted as the ownership of the landscape for the use of the people while emphasizing national identity through nature. As a latecomer to this movement, this paper describes part of the journey of the establishment of national parks in Turkey, with a focus on the period between 1950 and 1975. In this paper I argue that the national parks were a means of constructing a national identity through the transformative power of modernism on the countryside. Focusing on different national parks from Turkey, I interrogated the role of these so-called pristine and primitive lands in the construction of national identity through different forms. Under the threat of neoliberal economic policies and new approaches to understanding of nature these protected and reserved pieces of “nature” deserve more attention.