Ten Years after the Gezi Park Protests: Looking Back on Their Legacy and Impact

The Gezi Park protests are a milestone for system-challenging collective action practices in Turkey. Now, ten years later, we look back on the protests and their legacy. While the protests started in May 2013 as a response to the Taksim Project, which aimed to remove Gezi Park, they brought together thousands of people, including many who were protesting for the first time, to voice their opposition to then Prime Minister Erdogan and his policies. Participants were initially held together by their opposition to Erdogan, but soon overarching identities emerged that increased the connections between groups and created a solidarity that continued, in many cases, for years. In this piece we discuss the events that led up to the Gezi Park protests, the impact on its participants, and the outcome and legacy that they left behind. While the sociopolitical landscape has changed a great deal in the last ten years, the impact of the Gezi Park protests on Turkish society and culture remains.