The politics of staging in Istanbul : nation and urban space

Abstract

This thesis examines how urban space in Istanbul has been used in the practice of political organisation and debate. By focusing on a range of spaces in two contrasting urban neighbourhoods, Kadıköy and Bağcılar, it explores the interaction between the national and the local, the secular and the religious. Studying the local is fundamental, as the rise of Islamist politics in Turkey since the 1990s spread from the municipal level to the national election victories of the current Islamist ruling party in 2002. In relation to that, from the 1990s, there has been increased numbers of staged urban events and performances. This has entailed the remaking of, and the increasing use of urban spaces, with significant discursive and performative acts of the secular and the religious. The anniversary of Republic Day and the commemoration of Atatürk are two major national events that have now been taking place in various urban spaces with a tint of demonstration to show commitment to the Republic. The celebration of the conquest of Istanbul and the growing public celebration of Ramadan have provided a realm for the Islamist politics by, especially, evoking the Ottoman past in the spatial restructuring of the city. Importantly, this process has also been associated with the transformation of women's engagement with the public space, their uses of space and mobility in the city through both mundane activities and spectacular events. The research was conducted in two neighbourhoods of Istanbul, a city of contingent and contested spaces as a site of symbolic power and political struggle both in the past and the present. It is based on fieldwork conducted between 2014 and 2015 in the Istanbul districts of Kadıköy, a waterfront district stretching into inland on the Asian side, and Bağcılar, located inland on the European side of the city. Kadıköy, governed by secular oriented political parties since 1984, and Bağcılar, the first district to be governed by Islamist oriented political parties since 1992, provide contrasting examples of different modes of political expression in a spatially related context. The study draws on qualitative methodology and ethnographic observation, including a mix of semi-structured interviews, participant observation, archival research and photo documentation. The interviews were conducted with municipal officers, and women from the Kadıköy Municipality Volunteers and the Bağcılar Municipality Women's Council as well as the Bağcılar Municipality's reading group, the Wise Women Platform. The method of participant observation was employed through attending women's events and performances as well as the celebrations of key events. Through utilising these methods, this thesis tracks numerous spaces from home to city that manifest the spatial dynamics of urban politics informed by the secular and the religious aspects of nationalist discourses and practices. Through analysis of this data, the thesis outlines the relationship between political identity and urban space through the spatial politics of publicness, the aestheticization of urban politics through spectacular performances, the materiality of staging as a technique of power, and relational spatial dynamics of the secular and the religious. The links between the home and the city mediate women's publicness while the home shapes urban space as an extension of the domestic sphere and a metaphor of nation. Women's uses of space and the ways in which they engage with the city indicate the spatial variation of gender narratives, that is based on the performative articulation of political identity. The staging of events either in the form of celebrations or demonstrations by volunteers, non-governmental organisations, political parties and state officials at different scales from national to local reveal the symbolic, historical and political contestations between the secular and the religious. In turn, staging not only regulates, controls and produces space and the social, but also mobilises women to performatively engage with urban space. The Islamist political movement gained support through the mundane practices of women moving from home to home, discussing politics since the early 1990s, and it also spatialised its power dramatically through setting up stages for political urban events and performances. The secular organisations, however, operated in a reactionary or defensive mode in the public realm, where secular-oriented Turkish nationalism has been mapped onto the fabric of the city through the staging of national demonstrations, marches, parades and celebrations. The thesis concludes by arguing that understanding these contrasting uses of urban space is important in explaining political identity in contemporary Turkey.

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English