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Accepted Contribution:
Harnessing water: a history of Turkey’s development and underdevelopment
Zozan Pehlivan
(University of Minnesota)
Contribution short abstract:
From the 1960s onward, Turkey has been building hydro-power dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This paper focuses on the corresponding relationship between energy production and development centered in the industrialized west and dispossession in the largely agricultural and pastoral east.
Contribution long abstract:
From the mid-twentieth century onward, Turkey has been building hydro-power dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. By focusing on the various stages of damming in Turkey and the corresponding relationship between energy production and development centered in the industrialized and urbanized west and dispossession in the largely agricultural and pastoral east, this paper examines the impact of damming on the development of modern Turkey and underdevelopment of the southeastern Anatolia between 1960 and 2020. It argues that damming was the most important source of development in modern Turkey and a new stage of indigenous dispossession and displacement that has been documented by many historians in global south.