The Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) from 1977 to 2017: A Qualitative and Multidimensional Analysis of the 40 Years of GAP

The Southeastern Anatolia Project (Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, GAP) was initiated in 1977 as a water and land resources development project in southeastern Turkey. Throughout 40 years, the project has been transformed into a multi-sectoral integrated regional development project based on sustainable humandevelopment concept. Even though GAP has been a crucial project for the Southeastern Anatolia Region, Turkey, and the Middle East due to its size and scope, ambitious development goals and objectives, positive and negative impacts, and technical, political, economic, social, cultural, and ecological dimensions, the question as to how the project was conceived and narrated in written and spoken texts by its designers and implementers has never been comprehensively and systematically addressed in the relevant literature so far. This study fills this important research gap and empirically analyzes GAP-related discourses, their boundaries, and the evolution of GAP in 40 years based on GAP-related parliamentary proceedings recorded between 1975-2014, archival resources of the GAP Regional Development Administration, and 64 semistructured interviews conducted with politicians, bureaucrats, experts, and similar elite groups within the Turkish state mechanism involved in the planning and implementation processes of GAP.