IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ijurrs/v39y2015i1p46-61.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Globalization Really Happens: Remembering Activism in the Transformation of Istanbul

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher Houston

Abstract

Over the past 20 years it has become accepted wisdom that Istanbul has become a ‘global city', transformed in tandem with a raft of neoliberal economic policies. What is the relevant history of this globalization? A muted local knowledge possessed by Istanbul's inhabitants is that the military coup in 1980 was the crucial event in the re-engineering of the city. Yet exactly here a contradiction emerges: despite this acknowledgement, there is apparently little public memory about what it was like to study, work and agitate in Istanbul in the ‘crisis' years before the coup. Based on extensive interviews with people active in political fractions in the late 1970s, this article privileges a phenomenological approach to identify spatial practices, performances and perceptions of activists that generated and structured Istanbul's expanding urban environment in that period. Further, it shows how this history is relevant for comprehending both the ‘micro-causes' of the coup as well as important dimensions of Turkish politics in the present, each of which cast illuminating light on Istanbul's experience of globalization.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Houston, 2015. "How Globalization Really Happens: Remembering Activism in the Transformation of Istanbul," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 46-61, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:39:y:2015:i:1:p:46-61
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/1468-2427.12157
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diane E. Davis, 2005. "Cities in Global Context: A Brief Intellectual History," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 92-109, March.
    2. Åžerife GeniÅŸ, 2007. "Producing Elite Localities: The Rise of Gated Communities in Istanbul," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(4), pages 771-798, April.
    3. Caglar Keyder, 2005. "Globalization and Social Exclusion in Istanbul," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 124-134, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. M. Meli̇h Pinarcioğlu & Oğuz Işik, 2009. "Segregation In Istanbul: Patterns And Processes," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 100(4), pages 469-484, September.
    2. Monika Streule & Ozan Karaman & Lindsay Sawyer & Christian Schmid, 2020. "Popular Urbanization: Conceptualizing Urbanization Processes Beyond Informality," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 652-672, July.
    3. Jennifer Robinson, 2011. "Cities in a World of Cities: The Comparative Gesture," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 1-23, January.
    4. Cihan Tuğal, 2021. "Urban Symbolic Violence Re‐Made: Religion, Politics and Spatial Struggles in Istanbul," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 154-163, January.
    5. Ayona Datta, 2014. "Gendered Nature and Urban Culture: The Dialectics of Gated Developments in Izmir, Turkey," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1363-1383, July.
    6. Mine Eder & Özlem Öz, 2015. "Neoliberalization of Istanbul's Nightlife: Beer or Champagne?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 284-304, March.
    7. Sinan Tankut Gülhan, 2022. "Neoliberalism and neo-dirigisme in action: The state–corporate alliance and the great housing rush of the 2000s in Istanbul, Turkey," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(7), pages 1443-1458, May.
    8. Bahar Sakizlioğlu, 2014. "Inserting Temporality into the Analysis of Displacement: Living Under the Threat of Displacement," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 105(2), pages 206-220, April.
    9. Tobias Franz, 2019. "Why ‘Good Governance’ Fails: Lessons from Regional Economic Development in Colombia," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(4), pages 776-785, July.
    10. Albert Fu, 2016. "Neoliberalism, logistics and the treadmill of production in metropolitan waste management: A case of Turkish firms," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(10), pages 2099-2117, August.
    11. Bademci, H. Özden, 2012. "‘Working with vulnerable children’: Listening to the views of the service providers working with street children in Istanbul," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 725-734.
    12. Anlam Filiz, 2024. "Verticalities in comparison: Debates on high-rise construction in Izmir and Istanbul," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(4), pages 743-757, March.
    13. Richard G. Smith, 2014. "Beyond the Global City Concept and the Myth of ‘Command and Control’," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 98-115, January.
    14. Coskun, Yener, 2011. "Does re-design of the policies on housing finance and supply help to solve housing question of Turkey?," MPRA Paper 31729, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Gülhan, Sinan Tankut, 2022. "The Election Day that Lasted 84 Days: Mapping the Electoral Geography of the 2019 Istanbul Metropolitan Mayoral Race," SocArXiv ufvtz, Center for Open Science.
    16. Tuna Kuyucu, 2012. "Çağlar Keyder," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 43(1), pages 361-373, January.
    17. Mahir Yazar & Dina Hestad & Diana Mangalagiu & Ali Kerem Saysel & Yuge Ma & Thomas F. Thornton, 2020. "From urban sustainability transformations to green gentrification: urban renewal in Gaziosmanpaşa, Istanbul," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 160(4), pages 637-653, June.
    18. Adrienne La Grange, 2014. "Hong Kong's Gating Machine," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 251-269, March.
    19. Adaman, Fikret & Ardic, Oya Pinar & Tuzemen, Didem, 2006. "Network Effects in Risk Sharing and Credit Market Access: Evidence from Istanbul," MPRA Paper 4078, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Dec 2006.
    20. Peter Aning Tedong & Jill L. Grant & Wan Nor Azriyati Wan Abd Aziz, 2015. "Governing Enclosure: The Role of Governance in Producing Gated Communities and Guarded Neighborhoods in Malaysia," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 112-128, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:39:y:2015:i:1:p:46-61. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0309-1317 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.