Persistent Promises, Looming Failures: Rethinking Post-2013 Istanbul through Outward Mobilities

This talk seeks to understand changing conceptions and perceptions of contemporary Istanbul, at a particular juncture whereby mobilities in and out of Istanbul have accelerated and assumed new characteristics. We delve into how political subjectivities and imaginaries form as tied to leaving the city given the dynamics of the global urban condition whereby the boundaries between city-center and periphery are exceedingly blurred. For this, we focus on how mobilities away from central Istanbul after 2013 mold the everyday and urban imaginaries given tensions around the “promises” and “failures” of Istanbul.

Istanbul has for long been marked with mobilities – typically inward as a locus of desire and promise. Its transition from being a lively Mediterranean port-city to turning inward with national developmentalism to its expansive eruption propelled by neoliberal globalization throughout the 20^th century saw ebbs and flows in how its everyday fared vis-à-vis promise/failure. Outward mobility in the aftermath of the 2013 Gezi Uprising, was tied to specific economic, political and cultural dynamics fostering Istanbulites’ fears and anxieties thereby altering meanings attributed to the “center.” As such, we study everyday experiences of those who have left the city center for its peripheries, with a view as to analyze shifting imaginaries of the city at a moment when dualities such as the city and suburb, the center and periphery become obsolete.

This talk is based on eight months of qualitative research, including participant observation and in-depth interviews, in two recently populated “peripheral” districts of western and eastern Istanbul. By delving into the Istanbul(ite) narratives of mobilities we highlight Istanbul in-the-making ultimately contributing to the temporal and spatial understanding of urban Mediterranean continually reorganized through promise/failure in the context of economic and political flux.