Disruptive (un)certainties: emergent socio-spatial narratives of/in the everyday public realm in Istanbul

ABSTRACT

The public realm of Istanbul manifests a visceral fear and agony caused by several social–political conflicts and struggle which has impacted the everyday life of people. Through an artistic representation of public space perception and experience in Istanbul, we reflect on how the socio-political context impacts the everyday spatialities entangling individual and collective memory, current events and future un(certainties). Going beyond the dominant Eurocentric version of ‘good’ public space, in this provocation, we argue that, delineating these emergent and largely disruptive narratives can offer potential approaches for alternative city imaginaries to enable a collective sense of identity and belonging.

KEYWORDS:

• Public realm
• everyday
• spatial
• disruptive
• collective memory
• identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Anıt Sayaç : Şiddetten Ölen Kadınlar İçin Dijital Anıt. http://anitsayac.com/. Accessed 11 July 2022.

2 ‘Türkiye’deki saldırılar: 18 ayda yaklaşık 500 kişi yaşamını yitirdi’. BBC News Türkçe, 21 Dec. 2016, https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-turkiye-38365351.

3 ‘Turkey: Mass Arrests, Anti-LGBT Violence at Pride’. Human Rights Watch, 30 June 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/30/turkey-mass-arrests-anti-lgbt-violence-pride.

4 ‘Global Voices - Women’s March in Istanbul Marked by Police Violence and Detentions on March 8’. Global Voices, 13 Mar. 2020, https://globalvoices.org/2020/03/13/womens-march-in-istanbul-marked-by-police-violence-and-detentions-on-march-8/.

5 More details about the study can be found at https://lostleisurespacesofistanbul.cargo.site/TEXT-1

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lakshmi Priya Rajendran

Lakshmi Priya Rajendran, Lecturer in Environmental and Spatial Equity.

Kıvılcım Göksu Toprak

Kıvılcım Göksu Toprak is a postgraduate researcher at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL London.