Running Toward Modernity

In the Early Republican period, sport, and particularly running, was institutionalized as a key component of physical training through the Physical Training Policy, operating within a broader biopolitical climate of modernization and nation-building. Running activities unfolded within this biopolitical context and were spatially realized in the newly constructed capital of Ankara between 1930 and 1950. The urban spaces hosting these temporary sporting practices functioned as enabling spaces contributing to place-making and the formation of new spatial meanings and modern subjectivities, drawing on a socio-spatial perspective and archival research in the daily local newspaper Hakimiyet-i Milliye (Ulus). Running events repeatedly took place in specific time-spaces such as Gazi Farm, 19 May Stadium, Atatürk Boulevard, and Hakimiyet-i Milliye Square. These sites, while serving as pillars of the modernization project, also functioned as enabling spaces where subjectivities were experienced. Thus, spaces allowed for diverse forms of participation, facilitating both individual and collective experiences through which processes of place-making unfolded. In turn, these practices reinforced the significance of these time-spaces and supported broader processes of biopolitical governance and nation-building.

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