Political ecology imaginaries and possible futures in Turkey

Although disasters and political ecology problems continue to grow on a global scale, the states and their stakeholders still make decisions that can escalate risks and vulnerabilities. Within their populist discourse, they use political ecology imaginaries, which shape collectively held future visions and regulate desires and beliefs about values, norms and ways of life. Since imaginaries become an extension of control, it is critical to explore counter and alternative political ecology imaginaries for possible futures especially in disaster-prone countries. This study aims to explore alternative political ecology imaginaries and possible, future makings of contemporary artworks. Through the lens of feminist accounts in political ecology and science and technology studies (STS), this exploratory research is based on the qualitative analysis of five purposefully sampled contemporary artworks from Turkey, a disaster-prone country where political ecology risks and vulnerabilities are high and the imaginaries of the state and its stakeholders are extremely authoritative and popularized. Research methodology of the study mainly consists of a literature review, discourse analysis, field notes and participatory observation. The findings of the study contribute to disclose the transgressions around knowledge claims in political ecology studies. Counter and alternative political imaginaries of contemporary artistic research generate possible futures for more-than-human-worlds.