Le Ray 445outsider concerned with the issue, and that is also partly free of the ste-
reotypes (“terrorist”, “communist”) associated with the name “Tunceli”.^48
Meanwhile, they also started to widen their environmental concerns,
to ore-mining and the associated use of toxic cyanide (in Tunceli and
beyond), and to nuclear energy or genetically modified organisms. Thus
a general appeal has been made at the national level. But how does this
campaign make sense in Tunceli itself and how does it impact the rules of
public life there?
o find “cultural resonance” among inhabitants, the activists’ dis-T
course notably reinvented the place of nature in the Alevi cosmology,
appealing to their “innate” sense of respect and responsibility towards the
environment.^49 In urban centers, collective action to protest the construc-
tion of the dams was performed accordingly: marches were organized
along parts of the roads and valley to be flooded; rubbish was collected
on the banks of the Munzur river and Alevi religious performances were
organized on the sacred site where two tributaries of the river join. The
marches were designed to promote modes of circulation that (re)pro-
duced inhabitants’ attachment to their surroundings while transforming
categories of identification (“environmentalist” rather than “far-leftist/ter-
rorist” or “Alevi/heretic”). This constitution of the Munzur river as a privi-
leged location and scene for demonstrations contributed to transform the
local geography of contention. It somewhat challenged the “traditional”
Square of the Republic or the Human Rights statue as sites of protest for
example. When however performing on, or starting their action from
these “traditional” sites, activists are also often privileging innovative rep-
ertoire. In August 2004, the “Mads of Munzur” activist group protested
the dam construction by lying in the middle of the Square of the Republic,
each of them embodying an endangered river in the world. A considerable
public assembled; even police officers were intrigued.^50 On the one hand,
this repertoire combining play and seriousness somewhat detaches the
activism over the dams from spaces associated with “traditional” politi-
cal forces (far-leftist movements, trade unions, political parties) that are
already heavily stigmatized. It may consequently appear less suspicious to
inhabitants concerned about potential repression, if not to state security
agents, even though it does not display any of the symbols of the official
public grammar. By “conquering” other spaces for contentious politics