Politics of Space in Ankara: The Spatial Triad as Mobilization and Demobilization

Decades after the post-structuralist, Marxist, and postmodernist critiques of power, architects continue to play a role in assimilating and, sometimes, marginalizing the population through a mode of spatial production that contributes to climate change, structural racism, income inequality, social isolation, and numerous other complex societal issues. Urban theorists such as philosopher Henri Lefebvre, urban geographer Edward Soja, architect and theorist Christopher Alexander, and sociologist Asef Bayat explain how governments and powerful individuals use architects to shape spaces that reproduce economic and social hegemony. Alexander calls this mode of production System-B, which continues to dominate through disciplinary power. An example of this is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s urban transformations of Istanbul and Ankara. His regime is consolidating power through an intricate process that strips urban squatters (called gecekondulu in Turkey) of their way of life, agency, and social capital. This form of repression is not possible without architects uncritically practicing System-B. However, Alexander also defines another mode of production, System-A, which allows people to participate in the production of space and thus gain their right to the city. This research compares Lefebvre’s concept of the spatial triad—lived space, spatial practice, and conceived space—to Alexander’s modes of spatial production to situate them within theories of contentious politics. The objective is to understand how architects can create and ethical framework by analyzing the spatial configuration of an Ankara gecekondu called Zafertepe as it relates to political mobilization, participation, and demobilization. Through ethnographic research methods of interviews, spatial analysis, and participant observation, this study reveals how social nonmovements can gain their right to the city through spatial tactics of mundane resistance. The tactics employed by Zafertepe residents helped save their neighborhood for a time. However, the government’s employment of System-B successfully demobilized them. Architects who are concerned with the right to the city can learn from how Zafertepe residents maintained their identity, adapted to changing conditions, and resisted through the power of presence. By synthesizing this knowledge with Christopher Alexander’s conception of System-A, architects can create an ethical framework for architecture that includes the end-user in the production of space, recognizes the importance of shared identity, prioritizes adaptation, uses appropriate materials and adaptive reuse, reimagines the profession’s relationship with finance, and defines strategies for appropriating space. This framework would empower architects to become a social nonmovement and actively help the working class gain their right to the city. Through this transformation, architects can shift their role from being agents of repression within System-B to catalysts for positive change within System-A.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Kansas

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Ballinger, Barry Thomas

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• L'Heureux, Marie-Alice
• Silva, Kapila

• Architecture
• Political science
• Geography
• Contentious Politics
• Gecekondu
• Informal Settlements
• Social Movements
• Turkey
• Urbanism

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright held by the author.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:19191

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/38623