Assembling Istanbul: buildings and bodies in a world city: Introduction

Angell, Elizabeth; Hammond, Timur; Schoon, Danielle V.

doi:10.1080/13604813.2014.962882

Cited by 25 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Much of this valuable body of work has focused on space as the main analytic to understand how neoliberal power functions in Turkey’s urbanism, as it crisscrosses and assembles with gender, ethnicity, citizenship, and so on (Angell, Hammond, & van Dobben Schoon 2014). Interestingly, most studies trace how spatial transformation projects “are decided upon” and what happens when they are “completed,” while equating completion with eviction (Graham & McFarlane 2014).…”

Section: (Re)temporalizing Urban Transformation and Taksim 360mentioning

confidence: 99%

Behind the Scaffolding: Manipulations of Time, Delays, and Power in Tarlabaşı, Istanbul

Arıcan

2020

City & Society

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Taksim 360, located in the Tarlabaşı neighborhood of Istanbul, is one of the first state-led urban transformation projects in Turkey. Originally scheduled to be finished in 2014, the project is still under construction. Concordant with broader discussions, Tarlabaşı's urban transformation has been largely studied through spatial lenses centered on accumulation by dispossession and displacement. These works assume that urban transformation projects necessarily follow a linear trajectory from inception to completion. Building on and diverging from this body of research, I examine the relationships between construction companies, subcontractors, and politicians involved in Taksim 360 through ethnographic fieldwork and media analysis with a critical emphasis on temporality. I argue that urban transformation in fact works through manipulations of time, which necessitates a temporal analytical lens that does not take teleologies of buildings projects for granted. It is specifically through delays that economic and political power is exerted, navigated, and negotiated within Taksim 360 using legal contracts, work stoppages, and stand-offs; conjuring of continued investment; and improvisations with labor and political capital. And so, delays emerge as modus operandi of urban transformation rather than measures of its failures or successes [Urban Transformation; Temporality; Accumulation; Istanbul; Turkey]

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Section: (Re)temporalizing Urban Transformation and Taksim 360mentioning

confidence: 99%

Behind the Scaffolding: Manipulations of Time, Delays, and Power in Tarlabaşı, Istanbul

Arıcan

2020

City & Society

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“…market-rational versus plan-rational, weak state controls versus strong state controls), Istanbul illustrates how many cities defy either categorisation and instead exhibit strong elements of both (see also Wu, 2015, on China):While many of the post-2002 laws are broadly consistent with what might be termed ‘neoliberal’ reforms (such as increased financialization and marketization, and a focus on competition and entrepreneurship), it’s crucial to recognize that the state, and the central government in particular, has not been sidelined by these processes. (Angell et al, 2014: 650)It is difficult to claim that we have a national development policy. You know, in reality, we have never prepared a national plan.…”

Section: Explaining Istanbul: Stress-testing Urban Theories In An Int...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Doing comparative urbanism differently: Conjunctural cities and the stress-testing of urban theory

2020

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Ongoing splintering and siloification in urban studies require alternative approaches to bring the major theoretical and epistemological perspectives into constructive dialogue. Reflecting growing calls for engaged pluralism, we analyse the extent to which different perspectives can come together as complementary alternatives in understanding cities and present a framework for overcoming the key theoretical and methodological challenges caused by fragmentation. Using Istanbul as our illustrative case, we do this in three steps. Theoretically, we stress-test the potentials and limits of four dominant perspectives in urban theory making – global cities, state rescaling, developmental and postcolonial – revealing how each can only ever generate a partial, one-dimensional, explanation. Methodologically, we proceed to make the case for doing comparative urbanism differently by developing a conjunctural approach. Finally, and conceptually, we identify ‘conjunctural cities’ as a distinctive type of city and as a new approach to analysing cities. Our contention is that approaching all cities conjuncturally provides a significant step towards putting engaged pluralism into action, as well as indicating new terrain on which the future of urban theory/urban studies can be constructively debated.

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“…Nonetheless, the majority of work on urbanism and globalization and/or neoliberalization in the Middle East has focused on bottom‐up processes of resistance and spatial re‐appropriation; only a few have escaped that trajectory to study the processes of conceiving, building, transforming, and governing the city (e.g. Keyder ; Mitchell ; Elyachar ; Kanna ; Angell et al ). As such, most of the scholarship on neoliberal and globalizing cities in the region remains beholden to that genealogy in its method and angle of analysis, if not in the subject matter motivating its queries.…”

Section: A Genealogy Of Exceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are specialized nodes of work on colonial North Africa and globalized Dubai but the number of edited volumes on cities like Cairo and Istanbul (e.g. Keyder ; AlSayyad et al ; Amar and Singerman 2006, 2009; Angell et al ) attests to how overly centralized the study of Middle Eastern cities has become. The focus on these major urban centers comes to the detriment of understanding other centers in the region that may be seen as less “metropolitan” or “cosmopolitan,” as well as the secondary or peripheral cities in the orbit of those major urban centers, whether in Egypt or Morocco.…”

Section: A Genealogy Of Exceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to Special Section: The Un‐Exceptional Middle Eastern City

El-Kazaz

Mazur

2017

City & Society

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This special section of City and Society is dedicated to de-exceptionalizing the study of Middle Eastern cities. The introduction argues that the study of Middle Eastern cities has been constrained in its analytical and methodological focus by a genealogy shaped by a triad of regional exceptions-Islam, oil, and authoritarianism-and that the three pieces curated for this special section move beyond those constraints in important ways. Focusing on geographical places and time periods that have remained peripheral to the study of Middle Eastern cities, the three articles ethnographically historicize the planned and unplanned processes through which cities in the region transform to transcend a genealogy of exceptionalism and the constraints it has created. They highlight the global and local connections that shape these processes to offer new perspectives on the study of scale, verticality and sensoriums in the shaping of urban transformation around the globe. The section developed from a conference on Middle Eastern cities convened at Princeton University in May 2013.

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Assembling Istanbul: buildings and bodies in a world city: Introduction

Cited by 25 publications

References 45 publications

Behind the Scaffolding: Manipulations of Time, Delays, and Power in Tarlabaşı, Istanbul

Behind the Scaffolding: Manipulations of Time, Delays, and Power in Tarlabaşı, Istanbul

Doing comparative urbanism differently: Conjunctural cities and the stress-testing of urban theory

Introduction to Special Section: The Un‐Exceptional Middle Eastern City

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