Spatial Politics in Istanbul: Turning Points in Contemporary Turkey by Courtney Dorroll, Philip Dorroll ISBN 9781399503396, 1399503391 instant download

Spatial Politics in Istanbul: Turning Points in Contemporary Turkey by Courtney Dorroll, Philip Dorroll ISBN 9781399503396, 1399503391 instant download

Over the past decade, the AKP, under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has decisively turned Turkish politics in the direction of conservative Turkish Islamic national identity. Through an analysis of four case studies - the 2010 designation of Istanbul as the European Capital of Culture, the 2013 Gezi Park protests, the association of the first Bosphorus bridge with the 2016 coup attempt, and the transition of Hagia Sophia from museum to mosque in 2020 - the book identifies key moments of change and describes how the AKP has restructured public spaces in Istanbul to reflect its values.
This book explores the momentous shifts in power during a crucial decade in Turkish history, 2010-2020, by analyzing how these events have produced shifts in the physical landscape of Istanbul. Through an analysis of four case studies, the book focuses on the role of the Turkish state under the AKP in the restoration of conservative Islamic and Neo-Ottoman imagery and iconography in public space through the intentional transformation of architecture and the built environment. A specific ideological framework undergirded the AKP's conception of the built environment, the plans it implemented to transform it, and the forms of resistance that these plans generated. This specific ideological framework is here termed Erdoğanian Neo-Ottomanism, which describes AKP's use of the power of the state to shape the urban landscape in their social and ideological image. This phenomenon is the subject of this book's analysis.