[Bilimsel Haber] Review: Public Istanbul: Spaces and Spheres of the Urban

[Gonul Pultar]

*Frank Eckardt, Kathrin Wildner.* /Public Istanbul: Spaces and Spheres 
of the Urban./ <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/389942865X> 
Bielefeld: Transcript - Verlag für Kommunikation, Kultur und soziale 
Praxis, 2008. 352 S. $52.95 (paper), ISBN 978-3-89942-865-0.

*Reviewed by* Luisa Piart
*Published on* H-Soz-u-Kult (May, 2009)

*F. Eckardt u.a. (Hgg.): Public Istanbul*

This collection of essays titled: “Public Istanbul. Spaces and Spheres 
of the Urban” seeks to offer insights into the “multi-dimensionality of 
urban public space in Istanbul” (p. 9). It is the outcome of a 
conference that took place in Bauhaus Weimar University in January 2007 
which saw a coming together of Turkish and German scientists from 
diverse disciplines ranging from history and ethnography to architecture 
and urban planning. Editors Franck Eckardt and Kathrin Wildner attempt 
to “initiate an interdisciplinary discussion with theoretical approaches 
and case studies on Istanbul.” (p. 8). The project is based on two 
assumptions: the scarcity of research on the urban transformations 
taking place in Istanbul, and the new significance of what is named 
“public spaces” in the megacity at the Bosphorus. Franck Eckardt and 
Kathrin Wildner maintain that in the last two decades, globalization and 
the exponential demographic and geographical growth of Istanbul “has 
resulted in the establishment of new patterns in cross border public 
encounters.” (p. 15).

In the existant literature there is a lack of precise data on today’s 
Istanbul. The book should be praised for trying to fill this gap. The 
fourteen articles look at new uses or new spaces of the ‘public’ in 
Istanbul. They focus either on people (especially migrants), or on 
places and areas (for example, the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus, or the 
French Street). Some of the themes taken up are part of the scholarly 
literature on the study of megacities: gated communities (Orhan Esen/Tom 
Rienets), shantytowns (Sevil Alkan), gentrification, or urban 
regeneration projects and their specific forms (Eda Ünlü-Yücesoy, Funda 
Bas,-Bütüner, Senem Zeybekog(lu, Asu Aksoy, Susanne Prehl). Other 
articles look at the more uncommon: for example, Ela Alanyal?-Aral is 
interested in spaces along urban motorways and Feride Çiçekog(lu 
analyses the construction of ‘public Istanbul’ through a famous female 
movie character of the 1960s. This combination could have been quite 
challenging if the articles would provide a more coherent perspective on 
the topic. Although the editors state that “the concept of “public 
space” derives from theoretical and empirical considerations which 
neglect the multifaceted dimensions of cities like Istanbul’ (p. 17), 
the inaccuracy of previous definitions – from Jürgen Habermas, Hannah 
Arendt or Richard Sennett – is not sharpened. Thus, the different 
articles tend to be repetitive or inconsistent in the way the concept 
of “public space” is defined, or used.

Nonetheless, some articles make valuable contributions to the 
understanding of the ‘public’ in Istanbul. In what follows, three of 
these articles are summarized. Florian Riedler’s study focuses on 
temporary labor migrants in nineteenth century Istanbul and their 
belonging to the public and the private domains. He questions the 
supposedly “enforced separation of the temporary workers from the 
city’s population” (p. 236). Using empirical evidence gleaned from the 
Ottoman archives, he argues that this separation remained an ideal, 
expressing a desire to keep the city ‘in order’. Indeed, the migrants 
were usually single men and their dwelling was potentially disturbing 
the segregation between private/female and public/male spaces: “As 
strangers to the city, at least in theory, temporary migrants had to be 
kept away from the ”private world” of the “mahalle”.(p. 240). However, 
during the second half of the nineteenth century, the ‘public’ – 
understood here as a sphere and a space of sociability –acquired a new 
meaning in Ottoman Istanbul. On the one hand, some temporary migrants 
settled and constituted new ‘publics’, while at the same time, under 
Western influence, new spaces of sociability emerged (e.g. mason-lodges, 
theatres, or new-style cafés). The migrants were excluded from these 
places, but fashioned their own, based on their regional origins: 
notably, coffeehouses and ‘kiraathane’ (reading rooms). These spaces 
symbolized a new kind of participation in society. The author 
convincingly links these changes with the development of nationalism. 
Here the question touched upon is whether the ‘public’ was always 
reshaped throughout history, or whether this is something more specific 
to Modernity.

Feride Çiçekog(lu deals with cinematographic representations of the 
metropolis. She offers the reader a pleasant journey through the 
narrative of the famous Turkish movie ‘Vesikal? Yar?m’ (‘My Licensed 
Beloved’, from the director Lütfi Ömer Akad 1968). The main female lead 
is the prostitute Sabiha (played by Türkan S,oray). Çiçekog(lu contends 
that Sahiba “marks a turning point in the portrayal of women in public 
Istanbul” (p. 321). The movie builds up a gendered cartography of 
Istanbul with the help of the concepts of center/periphery and 
exterior/interior. Halil – Sabiha’s lover – lives at the periphery of 
the city, while Sabiha lives in the central entertainment district of 
Beyog(lu. The peripheral fringe is furthermore associated with “the 
realm of the familiar” and on the contrary the center, with being modern 
(p. 322). “Sabiha’s [short] transformation from a prostitute to a 
housewife“ – when she moves in with Halil – materializes the 
interior/exterior duality (p. 324). In the end, the couple breaks up 
and “Halil is excluded from “public Istanbul”” (p. 327). Sabiha goes 
back to the heart of the city in a subversive attitude which implies 
that she will resume her previous activity. In the final part of the 
article, the reader’s attention is drawn to Sabiha’s more determined 
character in contrast to female characters in contemporary European 
movies. The author concludes that “the public visibility of women in the 
city is an essential dimension of urban analysis” that has to be further 
researched (p. 331).

Like the majority of the contributors to this volume, Asu Aksoy 
elaborates on a topic from today’s Istanbul. She is interested in public 
culture and its “turn toward greater openness and interconnectedness” 
that she conceptualizes in terms of “worldliness” (p. 226). She examines 
both the “urban regeneration policy of the present AKP government” and 
the “recent city-branding activities by the top business elites of the 
country” (p. 217). Gated communities, commercial malls, and central 
business districts: new urban gentrifying projects are burgeoning. All 
this takes place against the background of massive public land’s sales 
that reflect current mechanisms of globalization in Istanbul (p. 219). 
She focuses on the switch in the policy and rhetoric of the governing 
Justice and Development Party (AKP). Aksoy argues that gentrifying 
projects bring the AKP into closer ties with economic elites, while at 
the same time moving it away from the “urban poor” that initially 
brought the party to power (p. 217). The author underlines the cultural 
dimensions of these new policy and development projects. They bring 
about a physical and symbolic cleansing of the city and showcase the 
desire and need of the AKP “to use Istanbul as a stage to demonstrate 
their modernity and globalism” (p. 217). What concerns the author is the 
ambiguity of this strategy. She insists on the “precariousness of the 
culture of openness” (p. 218) and turns attention to the dangers that 
this development potentially holds: anger, frustration, and social unrest.

“Public Istanbul” mirrors the diversity of topics that awaken the 
interests of researchers studying Istanbul See Orhan Esen, Stephen Lanz 
(eds.), Self Service City. Istanbul, Berlin 2005. . Many articles 
present preliminary theoretical or empirical results of ongoing research 
projects. In this, the quality of the contributions is quite diverse. In 
some articles, the sources of information are unclear and even 
disconnected from the research topic. In others, an adequate 
proof-reading of the English would have facilitated the reader’s 
comprehension. Diversity – of quality, topics, and methodology – is thus 
the impression that the reader is left with, and this is not 
counter-balanced by a strong theoretical guiding line. The book remains 
a loose collection of articles, rather than a collective volume with a 
unifying theme For a counter-example, see Diane Singerman, Paul Amar 
(eds.), Cairo Cosmopolitan. Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the 
New Globalized Middle East, Cairo 2006. . In this respect, it is 
symptomatic that the articles are not presented individually in the 
introduction. Furthermore the articles engage issues that have been 
hotly debated in Turkey such as migration, gated communities, and 
squatter areas See, for instance, Tahire Erman, The Politics of Squatter 
(Gecekondu) Studies in Turkey. The Changing Representations of Rural 
Migrants in the Academic Discourse, in: Urban Studies 38(2001)7, p. 
983-1002. . But too many articles do not take a stand, and even ignore 
recent discussions. More generally, the volume lacks a critical distance 
from its subject and most contributions are pervaded by moral and 
political judgments that are taken for granted rather than questioned.


*Citation: * Luisa Piart. Review of Eckardt, Frank; Wildner, Kathrin, 
/Public Istanbul: Spaces and Spheres of the Urban/. H-Soz-u-Kult, H-Net 
Reviews. May, 2009.
*URL:* http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24979