Gaining Freedoms : Claiming Space in Istanbul and Berlin / Berna Turam.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Turam, Berna, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political participation--Political aspects--Istanbul--Turkey.

Political participation.

Social conflict--Politics and government--Istanbul--Turkey.

Social conflict.

Public spaces--Political aspects--Istanbul--Turkey.

Public spaces.

Turks--Germany--Berlin.

Turks.

Social conflict--Germany--Berlin.

Public spaces--Germany--Berlin.

Istanbul (Turkey)--Politics and government--21st century.

Istanbul (Turkey).

Istanbul (Turkey)--Social conditions--21st century.

Kreuzberg (Berlin, Germany).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (265 p.)

Place of Publication:

Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, [2020]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Gaining Freedoms reveals a new locus for global political change: everyday urban contestation. Cities are often assumed hotbeds of socio-economic division, but this assessment overlooks the importance of urban space and the everyday activities of urban life for empowerment, emancipation, and democratization. Through proximity, neighborhoods, streets, and squares can create unconventional power contestations over lifestyle and consumption. And through struggle, negotiation, and cooperation, competing claims across groups can become platforms to defend freedom and rights from government encroachments. Drawing on more than seven years of fieldwork in three contested urban sites—a downtown neighborhood and a university campus in Istanbul, and a Turkish neighborhood in Berlin—Berna Turam shows how democratic contestation echoes through urban space. Countering common assumptions that Turkey is strongly polarized between Islamists and secularists, she illustrates how contested urban space encourages creative politics, the kind of politics that advance rights, expression, and representation shared between pious and secular groups. Exceptional moments of protest, like the recent Gezi protests which bookend this study, offer clear external signs of upheaval and disruption, but it is the everyday contestation and interaction that forge alliances and inspire change. Ultimately, Turam argues that the process of democratization is not the reduction of conflict, but rather the capacity to form new alliances out of conflict.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ACRONYMS

INTRODUCTION. The City and the Government

1. BETWEEN STATE SPACES AND AUTONOMOUS PLACES

2. A NEIGHBORHOOD DIVIDED BY LIFESTYLES

3. AFFINITIES IN THE ZONES OF FREEDOM

4. FAULT LINES ON CAMPUS

5. NEW COALITIONS IN SAFE ZONES

6. KREUZBERG’S DIVIDED DIASPORA

7. EMERGING SOLIDARITIES IN IMMIGRANT ZONES

CONCLUSION. Unified Opposition to the Divided Supremacy of the AKP

NOTES

REFERENCES

INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jul 2020)

ISBN:

9780804794527

0804794529

OCLC:

1178769364