Chapter 1- Introduction:
Istanbul’s Everday Conflicts and
Inherited Controversies
This research examines informal interactions and negotiations in two lost leisure typologies of Istanbul: mesire [meadow] and plaj [beach]; studies them over memory, identity and spatial-perception relationships, and tries to answer the question: “What aspects of Istanbul’s lost leisure space typologies, mesire and plaj, suggest inclusive sustainable urban settings and can be used for overcoming the social polarization?”. For answering this question, this paper will cover seven chapters elaborating on a phenomenological spatial perspective, discussions on public spaces, the study of two lost leisure typologies, ways suggested to conceptualize the space, and a conclusion. While beginning the paper, the overall framework of this research project will be set and the current Istanbul context, together with the motivations stimulating this study, will be presented and discussed.
The life in İstanbul can be described as “chaotic”. While running errands, going to work, having a tea with friends, or rushing to catch a ferry it is ordinary to come across ethically and emotionally challenging situations recalling inherited controversies. The public space here is intertwined with questions of identity which requires life-long reflections. This aspect of the city emerges as significant and characteristic. Standing as an almost 1700-year-old city with an anciently diverse community, Istanbul keeps re-iterating itself as its occupants run into each other and redefine the city in its public spaces. As confrontations with the past and each other occur, the social, mental, and urban resilience keeps being challenged. To maintain a level of social, economic, or ecological sustainability in this chaotic environment, embracing the constant negotiations over spaces and identities appears necessary.
[Figure 1] - Where is Anatolia?
Istanbul is frequently described as the city connecting the East and the West. Although these words have very loaded meanings, this definition is noteworthy since it emphasizes the city’s indication as being a crossroads. The geographical location of İstanbul; while also triggering many socio-political conflicts; constructs the everyday dynamics of the city and becomes the reason for developing a culture of “living together”. Countless objects, stories, and identities coming from infinitely varying backgrounds meet each other in Istanbul which wraps and connects them. As this constantly repeats, the city generates creative, unexpected, unpredictable ways to sustain its tangible and intangible existence.
On the flip side, the critical importance of Istanbul’s iterative, vibrant, and self-repairing cosmopolitan character gained more importance in the times that it struggled to function due to conflicts and traumatic interruptions. This can be observed in the historical narratives talking about the city’s past and the conflicts of interests. While describing the history of Istanbul, similar to many other political histories; invasions and wars stood out. The conflicts solved by political or military interventions are pointed out while narrating what Istanbul was. However, the life in the city had actually been sustained by smaller negotiations and stories continued at individual and social level; even during the breaking points such as wars, fires, and earthquakes. Sometimes through silent agreements and emotional sufferings, or micro-affairs such as fights, love stories, conversations over a coffee, or trading personal objects; but the city continued to exist and evolve as a spatial phenomenon by the continuity of everyday life.
In the recent past Istanbul had gone through historically notable conflicts again. Many traumatic events happening at the societal level coincided. These varied from increasing femicide rates (represented in Zeren Göktan’s work “Monument Counter” 1), serial bombings occurred between September 2015 and December 2016 killing more than 500 people2, economic crisis, a coup emergency3, restrictions against accessing public squares, a global pandemic, mucilage problem in the Marmara Sea (a critical ecological warning)4, and many more. Going through these incidents, the public space’s meaning changed; and so did the spatial experience and the individuals’ relationship with the city and each other. While these incidents impacted and influenced major transformations in social dynamics, they also emerged as intangible blockages preventing being present in the public sphere and creating a sustainable social and spatial environment.
Emre Erdoğan who studies polarization in Turkish society, states that dehumanization (seeing people as ideological or material entities without recognizing their human attributes, mental and emotional capacities) increases in recent years especially based on political identities.5, 6 This reminds APA’s definition of essentialism: “the view that certain categories [...] have an underlying reality or true nature that one cannot observe directly”.7 As retrievable from the definition, essentialism generates an understanding that people that one cannot identify are potentially dangerous, ill-natured, or evil. Even though the reasonings behind are mostly not realistic, dehumanization emerges as a fact in the social context. In this sense, it can be associated with the self-defence response in the case of trauma or continued stress where the anxiety felt in each unique case can be empathized but it is not easy to justify.
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[Figure 2] - “Deafening Memories”
As Sargın portrays, the mentioned reflex is inherited: “it is believed that the mode of Turkish Renaissance has revolved around the binary oppositions of `modern versus traditional’ and `secular versus religious’”.8, 9 Controversies and attempts of identifying an enemy can be discovered in these polarized historical narratives. Therefore, to understand the capacities of living together and urban resilience, one needs to look beyond these historical narratives, and challenge them by dissecting the ways everyday life had organically endured beneath conflicts. The inherited dynamism and multi-layered culture can be tools to provide the elasticity necessary for overcoming the contemporary conflicts.
1 ‘Anıt Sayaç : Şiddetten Ölen Kadınlar İçin Dijital Anıt’. Accessed 11 July 2022. http://anitsayac.com/.
2 BBC News Türkçe. ‘Türkiye’deki saldırılar: 18 ayda yaklaşık 500 kişi yaşamını yitirdi’, 21 December 2016. https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-turkiye-38365351.
3 ‘Dakika dakika 15 Temmuz: Darbe girişiminde ne oldu ve neler yaşandı?’ Accessed 1 September 2022. https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/dakika-dakika-15-temmuz-darbe-girisiminde-ne-oldu-ve-neler-yasandi-1852640.
4 Hürriyet Daily News. ‘Mucilage in Marmara Sea Continues to Pose Threat, Study Shows - Türkiye News’. Accessed 1 September 2022. https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/mucilage-in-marmara-sea-continues-to-pose-threat-study-shows-167820.
5 Emre Erdoğan. ‘Türkiye’de Kutuplaşma’. 405 / DörtYüzBeş. Accessed 15 December 2021. https://dortyuzbes.com/kutuplasma-emre-erdogan/dortyuzbes.com/kutuplasma-emre-erdogan/.
6 ibid.
7 APA. ‘Essentialism in Everyday Thought’. https://www.apa.org. Accessed 15 December 2021. https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2005/05/gelman.
8 Sargın, Güven Arif. ‘Displaced Memories, or the Architecture of Forgetting and Remembrance’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22, no. 5 (1 October 2004): 659–80. https://doi.org/10.1068/d311t.
9 Tekeli, İlhan. Modernite Aşılırken Kent Planlamas| [Urban Planning at the Verge of Modernism]. Ankara: İmge Kitabevi, 2001.
Emre Erdoğan who studies polarization in Turkish society, states that dehumanization (seeing people as ideological or material entities without recognizing their human attributes, mental and emotional capacities) increases in recent years especially based on political identities.5, 6 This reminds APA’s definition of essentialism: “the view that certain categories [...] have an underlying reality or true nature that one cannot observe directly”.7 As retrievable from the definition, essentialism generates an understanding that people that one cannot identify are potentially dangerous, ill-natured, or evil. Even though the reasonings behind are mostly not realistic, dehumanization emerges as a fact in the social context. In this sense, it can be associated with the self-defence response in the case of trauma or continued stress where the anxiety felt in each unique case can be empathized but it is not easy to justify.
[Figure 2] - “Deafening Memories”
As Sargın portrays, the mentioned reflex is inherited: “it is believed that the mode of Turkish Renaissance has revolved around the binary oppositions of `modern versus traditional’ and `secular versus religious’”.8, 9 Controversies and attempts of identifying an enemy can be discovered in these polarized historical narratives. Therefore, to understand the capacities of living together and urban resilience, one needs to look beyond these historical narratives, and challenge them by dissecting the ways everyday life had organically endured beneath conflicts. The inherited dynamism and multi-layered culture can be tools to provide the elasticity necessary for overcoming the contemporary conflicts.
1 ‘Anıt Sayaç : Şiddetten Ölen Kadınlar İçin Dijital Anıt’. Accessed 11 July 2022. http://anitsayac.com/.
2 BBC News Türkçe. ‘Türkiye’deki saldırılar: 18 ayda yaklaşık 500 kişi yaşamını yitirdi’, 21 December 2016. https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-turkiye-38365351.
3 ‘Dakika dakika 15 Temmuz: Darbe girişiminde ne oldu ve neler yaşandı?’ Accessed 1 September 2022. https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/dakika-dakika-15-temmuz-darbe-girisiminde-ne-oldu-ve-neler-yasandi-1852640.
4 Hürriyet Daily News. ‘Mucilage in Marmara Sea Continues to Pose Threat, Study Shows - Türkiye News’. Accessed 1 September 2022. https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/mucilage-in-marmara-sea-continues-to-pose-threat-study-shows-167820.
5 Emre Erdoğan. ‘Türkiye’de Kutuplaşma’. 405 / DörtYüzBeş. Accessed 15 December 2021. https://dortyuzbes.com/kutuplasma-emre-erdogan/dortyuzbes.com/kutuplasma-emre-erdogan/.
6 ibid.
7 APA. ‘Essentialism in Everyday Thought’. https://www.apa.org. Accessed 15 December 2021. https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2005/05/gelman.
8 Sargın, Güven Arif. ‘Displaced Memories, or the Architecture of Forgetting and Remembrance’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22, no. 5 (1 October 2004): 659–80. https://doi.org/10.1068/d311t.
9 Tekeli, İlhan. Modernite Aşılırken Kent Planlamas| [Urban Planning at the Verge of Modernism]. Ankara: İmge Kitabevi, 2001.