The role of women in constructing anti-mining struggles in rural Turkey: spaces of resistance from thresholds to commonalised vigil areas

This study focuses on environmental activism in rural areas of Turkey, and explores the relationality of women actors and space in the anti-mining struggles in Kazda & gbreve;lar & imath; (Mount Ida) and Akbelen Forest. The spatialities related to a two-pronged strategy are discussed. These strategies are the long-term legal battles and tent-vigils at the protest sites. Vigils were set up and, at the same time, local judicial processes were started. The field research focuses on both the specific watch area and on the entire region affected by ecocide to fully explore the spatiality of this two-pronged strategy. Women's environmental activism is examined through an ecofeminist lens that prioritises concern for the "other" during protest action. Adopting such a perspective, that highlights negotiation between diverse actors to sustain collective action, allows examination of the identified spatialities through Stavrides's concepts of "thresholds" and "commons". It is argued that there is a flow of spatiality from thresholds to commons during the process of negotiations with the "other" in these cases. Village coffeehouses, bazaars, homes, and other places become thresholds for the movement, established outside the protest sites. Through these constructed thresholds, the vigil areas established in the middle of the forests are largely sustained, and through commoning practices carried out within accepted common spaces. These include resistance kitchen, resistance tents, and container elements- where women predominantly work to meet the physical needs of the activists, like shelter and food and also bolster mental resilience through encouragement, counselling and discussion.