Metabolic Urbanization of Waste in Ankara: A Governance Perspective

Abstract

This study, is a continuation of the efforts to explore waste governance by means of the Urban Political Ecology (UPE) approach. However, it is not constrained to the existing frames or geographical contexts within which UPE of waste research currently operates. Offering a view from Ankara, Turkey, this research presents an inquiry on the co-evolution of socio-technical heterogeneity and waste governance. Informed by the complex relations underlying the production, change and sustained coexistence of authorized and unauthorized socio-technical configurations around waste, and the ramifications of this coexistence for the urban governance of waste, this book1) explores the mechanisms lying behind the metabolic urbanization of waste and the construction of urban policy and planning responses towards waste within the context of rapid urbanization in Ankara; 2) investigates how various socio-technical responses towards waste is historically produced and transformed; and 3) develops a more insightful theoretical frame to understand such environmentally, socio-spatially, economically and politically important issue.