How Protests in Turkey Affected Our Summer Program
When the summer program began in Freiburg in late May, the spring chill was beginning to thaw. Bags packed with light, summer clothes, our summer students were prepared to travel over two weeks around Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey studying the EU relationship with the neighboring East. Simultaneously, a new hash tag was flooding social media sites: #OccupyGezi. Larger international news sources began writing about political unrest in Istanbul. The protests, which began in Taksim Square on June 1st, eventually spread to other Turkish cities, including the university town of Izmir, the central hub for our Turkey field study trip. Beyond the basic challenges that the staff, faculty and students at the European Union Center face every day—concerning cultural integration and the constant juggle of studying in the ideal summer surroundings of Freiburg—we were faced with a new, unavoidable and relatively complicated challenge: was it feasible to travel to Turkey? With the US State Department issuing a travel warning to Turkey in June, it became clear that the Turkey study trip needed to be canceled, leaving a gaping hole in academic programming.
The staff at the European Union Center frantically began searching for new destinations, coming together as a unified team to achieve this challenging task. Karin Hunn, the Field Study Coordinator for the program, noted that it was not only a question of where we could go on such short notice during the high travel season, but also “finding a realistic and interesting academic alternative.” Other challenges that the center staff faced included
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