ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches the outline of an emerging pragmatist urban political ecology approach to analysing the politics that take place in and over urban green space. It builds on two distinct pragmatist traditions: first, American pragmatism, and in particular the revived engagement in geography and related social sciences with John Dewey; and second, the various strands of sociology that together compose 'French pragmatism'. The chapter illustrates one of the most famous recent examples of political struggle in and over urban green space: the 2013 protests over and within Gezi Park and Taksim Square, in Istanbul, Turkey. It suggests that we can gain a richer understanding of the spatiality by drawing on French pragmatic sociologies and attending to the specific critiques, justifications, forms of engagement and orders of worth deployed in political controversies and compromises. The chapter also suggests that emphasizes not only how political processes shape urban green spaces, but also the converse.
