Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP): a qualitative review of the literature. Issue 4 (7th August 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bilgen, Arda
• Is Part Of: British journal of Middle Eastern studies. Volume 47:Issue 4(2020)
• Page Start: 652
• Page End: 671
• Publication Date: 2020-08-07
• Subjects: Middle East -- Study and teaching -- Great Britain -- Periodicals; 956
• DOI: 10.1080/13530194.2018.1549978
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1353-0194

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The Southeastern Anatolia Project ( Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, GAP) is one of the largest regional development projects ever implemented in the Middle East. Launched officially in the 1970s to develop the water and land resources of southeastern Turkey, GAP has over time evolved from a predominantly technical, largely state-led and mainly infrastructural and economic development-oriented project into a primarily social, largely market-friendly and chiefly sustainable and human development-oriented project. Parallel to this evolution, GAP has grown more visible in political and public discourses. The implications of the project, for instance, on the ecology and cultural heritages, on the Kurdish Question, and on water issue among Turkey, Syria and Iraq have become clearer. However, despite growing academic and policy interest on GAP, there has been no attempt to provide a literature review on the project. Even more than 40 years after GAP was begun, a bird's eye view of researched and under-researched topics in the literature has not been introduced yet. This article seeks to present a qualitative review of GAP-related literature. In this way, it seeks to constitute an initial step to establish a base for more expansive reviews and to provide guidance to interested and involved researchers, practitioners and policymakers.