Governing the Contested City: Geographies of Displacement in Diyarbakır, Turkey

Abstract

This article develops a spatial analysis of the authoritarian governmentality of the Kurdish issue in Turkey through a case study of Diyarbakır in which geographies of war and peace have coalesced. Drawing on recent theorisations of military urbanism, it examines encounters-including both conflict and cooperation-between the state bureaucracy, local pro-government elite and pro-Kurdish municipal authorities within the context of the initiatives to rehabilitate the city's historic centre, Suric ßi, during the period 2002-2015. The article suggests considering Suric ßi's rehabilitation as part of a post-conflict urban regime to thwart social and political vibrancy of the Kurdish urban poor in tandem with the idea of securitisation through marketisation. In doing so, it demonstrates that unpacking spatial imaginaries and rationalities that have rendered Suric ßi dwellers displaceable by devaluing their collective urban experience is critical for our understanding of the utter violence erupted during and after the urban warfare of 2015.

Post-conflict Urban Renewal as an Ethnocratic Regime Practice: Racialized Governance of Redevelopment in Diyarbakir, Turkey

“…Jongerden (2022, p. 380) formulates this shift in the pro-Kurdish party's approach to municipal politics transformed "from poverty as a problem, to the poor as a problem." Both district and metropolitan municipalities embracing this vision of restructuring the historical district as a commercial site manifested "the Kurdish movement's attempts to transform socio-culturally significant sites in tandem with decolonizing politics resonated with neoliberal urban development" (Genç, 2021(Genç, , 1963. The state-led post-conflict redevelopment in the southwest of Suriçi (Lalebey and Alipaşa Neighborhoods) partially built on this previous urban renewal attempt's legal and planning blueprints that were also once supported by the pro-Kurdish municipalities.…”

“…We interpret our findings as an indicator of the ethnocratic state's divergence from the neoliberal motives for marketization. Genç (2021) argues that the urban renewal attempt of the local and central governments' alliance as the forerunner of the destruction/reconstruction in post-2015. The Turkish state had pursued a strategy of "securitization through marketization" in 2009, as Genç (2021) formulates it, which he also claims as the foundation of the post-conflict redevelopment process.…”

“…municipalities 8 and the central government for the area was to redevelop these neighborhoods as sanitized secure tourist attractions and foster economic growth (Genç, 2021). However, the municipalities had to step out of the deal due to a strong backlash from their local constituency, namely the residents of Suriçi (Taş, 2022).…”

“…A determining characteristic of this nationwide urban redevelopment agenda is the market-based logic of neighborhood-scale demolition and reconstruction often in the form of public-private partnerships as a quintessential case of neoliberal urban restructuring in cities (Lovering and Türkmen, 2011;Demirtas-Milz, 2013;Lelandais, 2014;Unsal, 2015). Also in Diyarbakir, the local municipal authorities partnered with the central government bodies to pursue a similar urban renewal agenda to transform two neighborhoods in the southwest of Suriçi-Alipaşa and Lalebey-between 2004and 2009(Yüksel, 2011Genç, 2021). Although the urban redevelopment with a strong commodification and rehabilitation rhetoric was once attempted in the historic core of Suriçi, we argue that the Turkish state-led reconstruction of Suriçi in the aftermath of the urban warfare is not simply a product of neoliberal governmentality.…”

“Conflicts of interests” within and between elite assemblages in the legal production of space: Indigenous cultural heritage preservation and the Dakota Access Pipeline

“…164–165). I build on Driver’s critique, arguing that elites – here, federal agencies, courts, and politicians – are composed of multiple subgroups and individuals, with divergent interests, subject to pressures from other elites, resulting in what I term “conflicts of interests.” In conversation with recent scholarship on disagreements, fragmentation, competition and alliance‐building within and among corporate and political elites (e.g., Bull & Aguilar‐Støen, 2019; Genç, 2021; McDoom, 2014; Raleigh & Dowd, 2018; Sveinsdóttir et al, 2021), I use ethnography to analyse elites as assemblages held together – and split apart – by ideologies and emotions. I agree with Driver that elite interests may not be based solely in “raw material self‐interest” but may involve “concepts like honor, altruism, justice, and morality,” (2011, p. 169) and, I suggest, discourses, cultural norms, institutional missions, and empathy.…”