Department of Sociology

State-led gentrification and contested reframings of citizenship in Turkey

Wednesday 6 November 2019, 4.00PM

Speaker(s): Öznur Yardımcı

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Gentrification has long been addressed as a class remaking of the city led by the state.

In this talk, I intervene in this economic focus by examining a municipal-led urban redevelopment project in a former squatter neighbourhood in Turkey, a country that suffers from growing authoritarianism. Drawing on analysis of political speeches, I reveal the ways state actors 'invite' different social groups, including the squatter dwellers, to benefit from the project, while criminalizing those opposing it.

I suggest that gentrification triggers a process in which the state agencies communicate official notions of citizenship through the built environment. Drawing on the fieldwork material including interviews and observations, I argue that strict, state-led definitions are actively negotiated and challenged by different social groups who mobilized citizenship in different, competing ways.

Öznur Yardımcı is a visiting research fellow in the department of Sociology at the University of York. Her research concerns contemporary struggles over city and citizenship in Turkey.

Location: Room W/N/222, Wentworth College Nucleus, Campus West.