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Accepted Paper:
Social Infrastructures and Affective Experiences after the Ilisu dam in Hasankeyf Town, Turkey
Cansu Sonmez
(Gran Sasso Science Institute)
In this panel, I would like to discuss how decolonial methods can be very useful to understand indigenous affective everyday experiences with the social infrastructures in the post-displacement life. I question urban redevelopment practices through indigenous knowledge and perspectives.
Paper long abstract:
This study draws attention to the role of urban redevelopment practices in shaping social infrastructures and community life in the post-displacement and resettlement agenda. I question: in what ways the relationships with social infrastructures are transformed due to urban redevelopment practices after the Ilisu dam-induced displacement and resettlement in Hasankeyf? I explore lived and embodied experiences and practices through everyday interactions, socio-cultural and spatial relations between indigenous locals and social infrastructures. The study focuses on the reconstruction of Hasankeyf through the state-assisted resettlement in the wake of Ilisu dam hydropower development. In doing so, study focuses on affective ramifications in the life with/after the changes in social infrastructures through urban redevelopment practices. I conducted a qualitative empirical study by incorporating the decolonial method of body-mapping (cuerpo-territorio) in Hasankeyf (before the submergence in 2020 and after in the resettlement in 2021). Findings suggest that the resettlement town of Hasankeyf tend to wipe away the rural texture of everyday relationships with existing social infrastructures, therefore, people who have stronger sense of place with social infrastructures of natural elements (water, garden, soil, animals), ethnic ovens, and historical artefacts (those non-human neighbours) are more likely to embody struggles and discomfort with the social infrastructures in resettlement.