Pelintan.article Libre

Social Housing – Housing Social: Art, Property and Spatial Justice

SKOR, Amsterdam, 2012

Conflict and Hospitality

Pelin Tan

State of exception

In recent years, the state of Turkey has strengthened its “governmentality” and

its control of the use, design and development of public space through greater central

administration. It has not only established specific administrative departments, such

as TOKÌ, but has also passed laws on land-property transfer and state-led urban re-

production. It is a state that justifies, normalizes, and governs through laws of

exception; it controls cities and urban spaces. The recent law on Disaster Risk

Management gives full power to the Ministry (of Environment and Urbanism) and

TOKÌ in order to transfer property, agree terms, and to decide what should be

demolished. TOKÌ and local municipalities are the main actors of urban

transformation projects in Turkey. They present a localized version of neo-liberal

urban condition and rescaling. TOKÌ (Toplu Konut Idaresi Baskanligi) is the Housing

Development Administration of Turkey, a state department aiming to build social

housing complexes for poor people. However, TOKÌ also acts as a collaborator with

municipalities and as a private company in urban clearance projects that replace poor,

ethnically diverse communities with the aim of replacing them with increasingly

middle class neighborhoods. All the actors involved in building activities can be

viewed as a local version of broader neo-liberal activity, a neo-liberalism, as

described by David Harvey, that: “... generates a complex reconstitution of state-

economy relation in which state institutions are actively mobilized to promote market-

based regulatory arrangements.” Introducing urban policies that allow the

displacement of inhabitants, shifting their ownership and property rights, using

Istanbul’s image as a marketing tool for local and foreign investors, and manipulating

urban fears (of terrorism, earthquake, safety etc.), are components being used in the



function of urban clearance and rescaling. Legitimizing gecekondu4 areas and

connecting them with capitalist productions of urban spaces, or expanding the city

with “enclaves/gated communities,” became possible through the manipulation of

related urban and economic policies. In a manner of continuity, the 2000s have

witnessed the emergence of large-scale urban transformation projects under titles such

as “urban renovation” or “urban development” which legitimize demolishment and

reconstruction via abstract discourses of urban fear, ecology, cultural heritage, and

natural disasters (i.e. earthquakes). Since 2005, with the introduction of the Urban

Transformation and Renewal Policy 5366(5) – which allows municipalities full

authorization of over urban renovation and development – the legitimization of recent

urban transformation projects, which were planned for Istanbul, speeded up. The

policy allows municipalities to define places or districts in Istanbul as an “urban

transformation area,” with control over property rights, urban planning, and

architectural projects.

The law allows the right of immediate expropriation of any property, be it

housing, land, or urban space and especially in the historical part of the city. This

immediate expropriation was designed to be used by the state in urgent conditions

such as war or natural disasters. However, in Istanbul, we witness that the law is

being applied for the reason of implementing new urban projects. So, the application

of this law functions as a tool in transforming urban space or property under juridical

conditions in which any kind of municipal act (demolishment, property transfer,

eviction, etc.) becomes justified. As Giorgio Agamben describes in Homo Sacer; the

juridical formula of creating a new law that normalizes (being controlled) the zones of

indistinction or marginal zones justifies and regulates the relation between

sovereignty and space. The Istanbul Chamber of Architects and the Istanbul Chamber

of Urban Planners brought many court cases against the municipality in order to raise

public criticism against the usage of the law several times. In June 2010, another code

was introduced which allows any kind of land to be transformed in both the center

and peripheries of Istanbul. Article 73, which is part of the Law 5393 (approval date

2004), includes the rights for municipality to operate and transform any type of land



between five and five-hundred hectares (zoned or unzoned).

Another argument for describing the situation and the investment in housing

and real-estate in Turkey, is the direct relationship between the conservative pro-

Islamist ruling party (AKP) and its community that realizes the creation of a new

middle class supported by new social housing projects, property transfers, and

housing constructions. The urban researcher Ayse Çavdar claims that housing projects

such as Basakshehir present a new urbanism for the new middle class pro-Islamic

society.7 The direct centralization of urban policy making is moderated and initiated

by minister Tayyip Erdogan, a former Mayor of Istanbul, and Erdogan Bayraktar,

former director of TOKÌ, and now the newly-established Minister of the Environment

and Urbanism.

Different neighborhoods, different cases

Following the collaboration of these actors and the new urban policies, many

local municipalities are now applying the same process of urban clearance to the

neighborhoods that are under their jurisdiction. However, these neighborhoods have

diverse geographical situations, social structures, identities of communities, and

different levels of suffering due to the process. The diversity of these neighborhoods

requires localized urban policies, but also specific organizations and ways of

solidarity. To exemplify this, I will offer a few diverse examples from the past five

years.

The Tarlabası district consists of a few neighborhoods that are located in

Taksim-Beyoglu (in the center of Istanbul). The population of the district consists

mainly of immigrants from Anatolia. They arrived here as the outcome of forced

migration due to the intense Kurdish-Turkish civil war of the 1990s in east and south-

east Anatolia. Moreover, further illegal African and Asian migrants and asylum-

seekers, fleeing civil wars and border conflicts, have also settled in Tarlabası.8 In the

past, Tarlabası’s inhabitants were mostly non-Muslim communities of the Ottoman



Empire. In recent years, the district is characterized as physically run-down and its

heterogeneous, but poor, community (ethnically diverse, mixed sexualities, etc.) as

socially unacceptable. This resulted in many urban clichés, describing the area as

insecure, unsafe, and a home of terrorism. The population is mostly employed in the

informal service sectors, presumably, in Taksim-Beyoglu. The Beyoglu municipality

collaborates with TOKÌ and the construction firm GAP, in order to transform this

district for the upper classes. The justification used by the municipality to transform

the district is based upon a renewal and renovation plan. When the municipality began

the process, using the force of Policy 5366, they got in contact with the owners in

order to buy their buildings and flats for lower than market-value prices.9 However, it

was only later that the inhabitants were informed of this when the construction firm

joined the joint venture and signed the agreement on April 4, 2007. In order to find

out their dwelling rights, and to act against the process forced upon them by the

municipality, the owners established an association to protect and defend the rights of

ownership and of tenants in Tarlabası (the Association for Solidarity with Tarlabası

Property Owners and Renters). The Association halted the agreement process between

the municipality and the owners, unless the municipality and GAP take into

consideration the rights of the inhabitants. Tarlabası is one example of a rundown,

ethnically diverse “ghetto” area. The municipality does not only want to improve the

physical condition of the built environment by rebuilding facades and flats for the

upper classes, but also to change its entire demographic, replacing the current

population with a more homogeneous, richer class of citizen.

In 2008, Istanbul witnessed street demonstrations by inhabitants of the

Basıbüyük district, mostly by women and mothers.10 For the first time, housewives

took to the streets to resist against the police who were waiting with gas bombs to

attack the inhabitants. Basıbüyük is a former gecekondu district, situated on a hill in

Maltepe (in the east of Istanbul) with a view over the Bosphorus; it is an area that

used to be at the periphery of the city. Seventy-three percent of the population of

Basıbüyük voted recently for the AKP party, which means that the political tendency

is conservative, right wing. The political identity of this district differs in comparison



to other neighborhoods in that it can’t be defined as an ethnically diverse, leftist

minority neighborhood. This post-gecekondu-area is legitimized through the

installation of infrastructure (electricity, water, gas) that has been slowly increased by

the local municipalities in each election since 1984. The plan of TOKÌ was to build

social housings in an undeveloped area in Basıbüyük, to transfer the 6,500 families

there, and to build luxury houses on the rest of the land. TOKÌ offers very low prices

to these families and forced them to sign a mortgage agreement for the new “social”

housing. This means that they will get less money for their existing properties than

they will have to pay for the apartment flats built by TOKÌ. But the families refused to

accept the agreement, resulting in street conflict and resistance against the

municipality and the police which continued for months. Still the negotiation goes on.

Çavdar offers another example in Ayazma.11 Ayazma is a strongly ethnically

diverse neighborhood (and, again, the effect of forced migration), situated near the

Olympic Stadium, which was constructed in 2001. Almost all inhabitants were forced

to leave the area since the municipality began destroying houses on February 1, 2007.

Nearly 880 houses have been destroyed in the neighborhood, which had originally

been established in 1980. 650 families were forced to move to another housing

project, built by TOKÌ, called Bezirganbahçe, which most of them could not afford.

Some families moved back to their homelands, some returned to their relatives in

Istanbul, while others still try to survive in the tents in Ayazma.

Gülsüyü-Gülensu neighborhood, located on the east side of Istanbul, could be

mentioned as a successful example of resistance against a local municipality. Also a

former gecekondu area, the district was included in an urban transformation projects

list by the municipality. Until the inhabitants received an official letter from the

municipality, they were not aware of anything. The moment they received the letter,

the inhabitants collected 7,000 signatures and brought thirty-two court cases17 to say

“no” to urban transformation. Furthermore, the inhabitants established the Gülsüyü-

Gülensu Neighborhood Association along with the Platform of Istanbul

Neighborhoods Association (neighborhoods that are under threat of state-led urban



transformation). Many of these migrant families moved to Istanbul in the 1970s and

the recent generation is strongly united as a leftist political community.

Another distinct example was Sulukule, which is often mentioned in the

Turkish media because of its ongoing dwelling rights campaign, even though it is now

totally destroyed. A kitsch form of “Ottoman-past” housing is now typical in the area.

Sulukule, a district on a historical peninsula, is an area where a majority of the Gypsy

community had been settling since the Ottoman Era, now forced out and displaced.

Under Policy 5366, it was decided that the settlement in the district should be

demolished on December 13, 2006 by the state authorities. The owners had been

offered TOKÌ social housing in Tasoluk, a new district thirty-five kilometers to the

northeast of Istanbul.

There are several more examples in Ayvansaray or in Sarıyer; either in the

center of the city or on its peripheries. In general, ethnically diverse and poor

communities are facing increasing social segregation from the rest of urban society.

They also have to deal with instability over the future of their homes and, through a

process of “enclaving,” their living places become ghettos. Furthermore,, “double

poverty” is a real issue as the inhabitants are mostly connected to the informal service

sector and represent the so-called flexible labor of the urban economy. When the

communities are displaced to far outside of the city, they consequently lose their jobs

and are also forced to spend more money on transportation, which they can least

afford. Thus, “Social Housing” became a motto for the state (TOKÌ and the Ministry)

and justification for both pursuing land and property profit, and also for engineering

social segregation.

Counter-cultural spaces, soft-activism?

What about urban movements or “right to the city” discourse? In general, the

discourse of “right to the city” is based on property rights in urban movements in

Turkey. However, this discourse should be revised and be based on our understanding



of “commons,” and our act of “common-ing,” and in claiming urban spaces and

dwellings in cities. All the examples mentioned represent different outcomes and

types of resistance according to the background of the district and the inhabitants.

Many campaigns and collaborations with academics, NGOs, independent activists,

journalists, and artists have been taking place in the last three years. Cultural events,

artistic interventions, research projects, and campaigns try not only to create public

awareness, but also to provide the right information to the public about what is going

on in the neighborhoods of Istanbul.

How can cultural interventions and gestures stimulate counter-cultural spaces in an

urban context? How can institutional critique play a role in this counter-cultural

discourse? And how and where can activists and inhabitants encourage participation

and create the common ground for representing such neighborhoods? Antonio Negri,

Constantin Petcou, Doina Petrescu and Anne Querrien have all discussed “soft forms”

of activism and urban projects that create collectivities on the micro or neighborhood

level. 12 In this context, art practices may play an important role. Not by affirming

notions of social healing or representing a social function, but by collaborating with

neighborhood initiatives to open up spaces for new realities. “’Soft’ implies that the

political diagonal could exist outside of the biopolitical diagram” and this biopolitical

diagram “… is the space in which the reproduction of organized life (social, political)

in all its dimensions is controlled, captured and exploited.” Here, a political diagonal

is a kind of distribution of power relations. The conversation gives examples of

different urban struggles and collectives that participate in urban activism with their

own practices and power. Soft forms of activism in urban neighborhoods could be a

description of what is going on in Istanbul regarding urban oppositional movements.

However, are ongoing urban struggles and discussions enough to prevent the

activities of TOKÌ, of local municipalities, and of police control in urban space?

Poverty, low levels of educational attainment (for example most Kurdish people don’t

understand Turkish, many can’t write and they don’t understand the official papers

that they receive from the municipalities), and several other reasons are still



preventing the emergence of solidarity among oppositional urban activism. The

Istanbul-based urban researcher/geographer Jean François Perouse questions the

reasons for the weakness of oppositional civil movements in the urban sphere in

general, and in the neighborhoods against state-led urban transformation projects in

particular.13 Giving the example of Ayazma, he cites several reasons for the failure of

oppositional urban struggles including the instability of the local population (because

of forced migration), the low profile employment (informal flexible labor), the

distances to the city centers, the complexity of ownership, and the lack of a communal

identity. 14

Sulukule is one of the best-known examples of cultural and artistic

interventions initiated by a heterogonous group of people from different fields:

“Sulukule Platform” 15 is a non-hierarchical body of interdisciplinary people and

inhabitants. A number of architects and participants from different fields initiated the

interdisciplinary platform 40 Gün 40 Gece Sulukule (40 Days, 40 Nights Sulukule),

which received the support of various NGOs and universities and launched public

activities to defend the district and its people.16 The platform also collaborated with

the lawyers of the Istanbul Chamber of Architects to prevent the activation of the

policy by taking the case to court. On May 17, 2007, a mutual protocol was signed

between the parties which have been involved or interested in the case including

universities, municipalities, NGOs, and the fellow initiators. Collaboration and

organization at a neighborhood level is possible, especially for the initiation of

temporary events and the use of local networks, which do not only help the

settlements to participate, but also to include protagonists from different fields.

Furthermore, media activism, using blogs and digital communications, inviting

citizens from different fields to participate in cultural/artistic events in the

neighborhoods, are examples of various forms of civil organization. For example,

since the Tarlabası Association stopped their communication with Beyoglu

municipality, and rejected their unreliable proposals regarding ownership, the

Association collaborates with urban researchers and academics, spreading public

awareness in the media. Also, the ongoing activities of the neighborhoods might



influence some institutional discussions about what “culture” and “social identity”

means in a segregated urban sphere. In general, academies, cultural institutions

(museums and art institutions), or the 2010 Istanbul European Capital of Culture

project often presented a hygienic, normalized urban culture that ignores

heterogeneous elements of society and generally acts against any kind of oppositional

political agenda in favor of representational multiculturalism. It is because of this that

the neighborhood platform prefers to collaborate with local urban collectives,

independent researchers, academics and artists as the most effective protagonists.

Governing art and culture

In Istanbul, we cannot pursue the same life that we have had. Istanbul has a

side that encompasses/enfolds us all and yet goes beyond us. We have left

behind the nine month period of being the European Cultural Capital. In a city

that is a European Cultural Capital, it is not possible to accept the destruction

of artworks in galleries and violence toward each other, violence where there

are foreigners.

The Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism,, Ertugul Günay gave a press

conference in a local cafe in the Tophane district, where around forty people from the

neighborhood had recently attacked three art galleries. In last year and a half, the

district where I have lived for seven years, Tophane – a transitional area between the

cultural entertainment center of Beyoglu and various residential neighborhoods – has

been facing a strong privatization process that echoes the culture of consumption of

the Istiklal-Beyoglu district.

The residents of Tophane are generally from mixed ethnic communities where social

conditions are poor. As an old neighborhood dating from the Ottoman period, the

district still represents fragmented localities in everyday life. But in recent years, due

to a process supported by the local municipality, Tophane has begun to transform into

a conservative, pro-Islamic area, although it remains fragmented with Romany,



Ottoman Greek, Kurdish, and other communities living in the neighborhood.

Although the district is the focus of a process of cultural gentrification that began

witha string of art galleries, from Beyoglu to Tophane, followed by the Istanbul

Museum of Modern Art, local everyday life continues to be based on the structure of

the heterotopia in which different cultures and values co-exist. Yet, in front of the

curious eyes of the inhabitants, a number of galleries, artist-run spaces, and private

residents have moved into the district. The galleries have redefined this area as the

“Tophane Art Walk,” linking the modern art museum, Sanat Limanı (the art space of

the European Cultural Capital Agency whose agency/office was on Istiklal Street),

and the art line that follows from Karaköy to the Golden Horn. The Art Walk, which

is one of the outcomes of Istanbul’s globally-forced urban marketing, is a culturally-

led transformation that meets the interests and demands of the real estate market. The

“art-mahalle” (art-neighborhood) conflict, which was widely covered in September

2010 by the Turkish media, focused on the urban violence and the resulting conflict

between two parties: the art scene and the neighborhood. Basically, the inhabitants

told the press that they do not want to accept the lifestyle of art people in their

neighborhood. In contrast, the artists and galleries explained that the neighborhood

has to accept the transformation of their environment.

I find the debate very interesting, for it is a discussion which was actually

hidden and appeared publicly only through the antagonistic claims in Istanbul, a city

which was the European Capital of Culture (ECC) in 2010. The ECC project is an

example, in Istanbul, that has been used by the government to justify the

transformation of the term culture into a total governmental concept. In the meantime,

the use of cultural projects and arguments for remaking the global image of the city,

both in the interests of tourism and real estate, appeared as real facts in urban space.

Since Istanbul was announced officially as the ECC, I have witnessed basically three

problems in the ECC process 18: the conflict between intellectuals, civil initiatives

and bureaucrats (government and municipal); the instrumentalization of art

practices/projects in urban space (selected by the ECC) that do not take any risk in

discussing or facing urban realities; and the strategies of the bureaucrats who are



administering the ECC budget in order to implement urban transformation, renewal,

and renovation projects. For the ECC, renovating mosques, bringing the historical

heritage of the city to the surface, or branding the city with artificial populist

discourses is exactly their function. Yet, while transforming urban space, the ECC

remains disinterested in urban conflicts and does not consider, for example, the

evictions and demolition in the Sulukule or Ayazma neighborhoods, nor did the ECC

consider this neighborhoods’ social environment as part of the heritage and culture of

the city.

In May 2009, Sulukule Platform organized an exhibition in collaboration with the

artist-run space Hafriyat, an exhibition that documented the entire process of the

neighborhood’s eviction. Besides official documents linked to this process, the

exhibition included alternative urban plans and the platform’s press archive; the

exhibition featured documentaries, paintings, craft projects, and, in particular, work

that was created in collaboration with the residents and children who are the victims

of urban transformation.

Another critical intervention into the process of urban transformation was the

Istanbul Map project 19 initiated by the Spanish artist Anna Sala in collaboration with

Istanbul Urban Magazine, 19 a project that produced critical cartographies about the

privatization of urban space. In 2007, the artist collaborated with artists, urban

researchers, residents, and architects from Istanbul who had concerns about the urban

projects initiated by the Greater Municipality of Istanbul, projects that aim to evict

residents from their neighborhoods. The map (supplemented by explanatory

typography) presented the situation of neighborhoods in several urban parts of

Istanbul. The map clearly showed the urban projects in their entirety and the eviction

process that resulted, revealing current urban conditions and warnings of future

problems threatening the general population of Istanbul. By creating alternative

platforms and counter-public spaces, art projects can create actions and related

discourses of resistance on the thresholds of spatial politics. The question of how the

possibilities of counter-culture are related to the dissemination of localities is part of



this complex debate. The recent state-led urban policies that expand the urban

segregation, poverty and fear; the populist contemporary art practices that aim to

catch the wave of global art markets within the urban marketing of Istanbul; the elitist

cultural policies that drive for modern hygiene – supposedly-European “standards”

are being used as part of populist discourse while actually driving pejorative, short

term, political agendas. The Minister of Culture and Tourism said, in his speech in

Tophane, that Istanbul is enfolding all of us as citizens. However, I would claim the

opposite and ask that Istanbul bring us together with our “differences,” counter to the

normalized culture that the government is pushing. The State’s policies – not only

regarding housing: see the recent discussion of forced design and planning for Taksim

Square in Istanbul and the public demonstration against it – create increased

segregation and a normalization, and thus justification, for aggressive urban land

policies.

Today, a critical spatial practice demands a new ‘ethics’. Cities, public spaces,

and territories are becoming more severely contested spaces. Actual territories exist

either at the periphery or in-between spaces in several different cities and they act as

spaces of thresholds. Researching and engaging with these territories in an organic

way demands an understanding of its experience in order to take part in its spatial

resistance. Creating a new practice of locality that is connected to the future of a

community, as well as its current spatial practices, has the potential for a new

knowledge of urban thresholds. I call for a new ethics that can result from urban

conflict and the unconditional experience of hospitality. We must do this in order to

counter the general administration of neo-liberal states – not only in Turkey, but in

many countries – and its control over social housing, the redevelopment of public

space and the transfer of property for profit.



2. www.toki.gov.tr/english

3. The whole actors that are involved in the building activity are another local version

of a neo-liberal activity what David Harvey describes as neo-liberalism that:

“...generate a complex reconstitution of state-economy relation in which state

institutions are actively mobilized to promote market-based regulatory

arrangements”. David Harvey, p.102, Spaces of Global Capitalism: A Theory of

Uneven Geographical Development, Verso, 2006, New York

4. gecekondu, is type of dwelling that occurred in the 50-60s as dwelling solution

illegally constructed by the immigrants/workers from Turkey who came to work in

Istabul. In 80s onwards, gecekondu settlements and ownerships were legalized via

populist political agendas by supporting infrastructure.

5. Article 5366: www.tbmm.gov.tr/kanunlar/k5366.html

6. Agamben, Giorgio (2001), Kutsal İnsan Egemen İktidar ve Çıplak Hayat, çev.

İ.Türkmen, Istanbul, Ayrıntı Yayınları

7. Cavdar, Ayşe (2010), Görünür Fanteziler: Büyüklük Kimde Kalsın?, İnşaat Ya

Resullah, pp.52-61, Birikim, Istanbul, İletişim Yayınevi.

8. Tan, Pelin (2004): Grenzpolitiken und Stadt-Betrachtungen. In: Lanz, Stephan &

Esen, Orhan (ed.) (2004): Self Service City: Istanbul. Berlin; metroZones 4. Berlin: b-

books

9. By offering lower value than its recent value of the property.

10. Ögünç, Pınar (2008): Bayıbüyük’ün derdi büyük kadınlar In: Radikal (Newspaper,

Istanbul), 17.05.2008; www.radikal.com.tr/



11 Çavdar, Ayse (2008): Başıbüyük’ün derdi de büyük. In: Aktüel (Magazine,

Istanbul), 29.05.2008

12 Negri, Toni; Petcou, Constantin; Petrescu, Doina & Querrien, Anne (2007): What

makes a biopolitical space? Paris, September 17th, 2007.

www.eurozine.com/articles/2008-01-21-negri-en.html

13 Perouse, Jean Francois & Düşler, Kentsel (2007). In: Radikal, (Newspaper,

Istanbul), 24.06.2007

14 Social-economical Impacts of Urban Transformation (with Neil Brenner;

academic, activist, urban researcher). July 11-13, 2008, Istanbul, Tütün Deposu,

organized by Pelin Tan/Osman Kavala (report available upon request).

15. www.sulukulegunlugu.blogspot.com, www.sulukuleplatform.blogspot.com

16. Interview with Aslı Kıyak Ingin (activist architect, co-founder of Sulukule

Platform) by Pelin Tan; www.arkitera.com/soylesi_68_asli-kiyak-ingin.html,

http://40gun40gece-sulukule.blogspot.com

17. Translated by the author who was presence in the press talk from the press speech

at Tophane district.

www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/15849123.asp, 23.09.2010

18 I was a short-term member of an advisory board for an interdisciplinary art

committee at the agency of European Cultural Capital of Istanbul, after that I

withdrew.

19 Istanbul Magazine / Istanbul Dergisi supported and published the map in order to

disseminate it in public. (Ayşe Çavdar, Ulus Atayurt, Fırat Genç collaborated in



creating the map).

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