As part of the academic program organized under the 2nd City Symposium: City and Cinema, hosted by Istanbul Kent University, Res. Asst. Dr. Eda Türkay and Asst. Prof. Gökçe Uzgören presented their collaborative research.
In the session moderated by director İmre Azem, the study titled “Eko-Turizm Söylemi Ardındaki Neoliberal Çelişkiler: Hiçbir Şey Normal Değil Belgeseli Üzerine Yapısökümcü Bir Okuma” was shared with the audience.
In their paper, Türkay and Uzgören analyzed the discourse of eco-tourism through the documentary Hiçbir Şey Normal Değil, directed by Ceylan Özgün Özçelik. They examined the impacts of neoliberal policies on nature, labor, and space from a deconstructive perspective. The researchers stated that they aimed to reveal the contradictions behind eco-tourism narratives by utilizing binary oppositions such as nature/capital, local/global, and sustainability/exploitation. Furthermore, the paper opened a discussion on how neoliberal urbanization processes are reproduced through “ecological” and “alternative” tourism discourses, while evaluating how the cinematographic language of the documentary strengthens this critique. They emphasized that cinema is not merely a tool for representation but also a field that generates political-economic criticism.
The presentation by Türkay and Uzgören drew significant attention from symposium participants due to its interdisciplinary approach addressing the relationship between city, cinema, and ideology.
