A class analytic approach to the Gezi Park events: Challenging the ‘middle class’ myth

On 31 May 2013, what began as a localised demonstration against the demolition of a public park in Istanbul escalated into anti-government protests of unprecedented form and scale in Turkey’s modern history. The class configuration of the Gezi Park events occupied the forefront of discussions within and outside the Turkish left. Mainstream accounts branded the events as an uprising of ‘middle classes’ concerned almost exclusively with secularism. Drawing on a Poulantzasian/Wrightian framework, we argue that the Gezi Park events can be reduced neither to a middle-class nor a secularism-centered uprising. They represent, instead, an initiative of various wage-earning class fractions led by service-sector employees and the educated youth, which rests on socioeconomic grievances of proletarianisation under neoliberalism.