Scholarly Publications - Architecture

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11693/115571

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Browsing Scholarly Publications - Architecture by Author "Batuman, Bülent"

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    Neoliberalisation through naming: place naming and shifting modes of housing production in Ankara
    (Liverpool University Press, 2024-08-19) Bayatlı, Semire; Batuman, Bülent
    Place names play an important role in neoliberal urban development. The naming of a housing estate, especially a gated community, is instrumental in constructing the image and intended sense of community of an estate. This paper scrutinises the naming of housing estates in Incek, one of the most prestigious suburbs of Ankara, Turkey. While development in the area began with middle-class housing cooperatives, today Incek is marketed as an idyllic landscape embodying high-rise luxurious gated communities. We show that the naming of the housing estates not only reflects but also contributes to the shift in the mode of production from housing cooperatives to gated communities built and marketed by large-scale companies. Additionally, the name Incek has come to refer to not only the official boundaries of the neighbourhood but a larger territory, which illustrates the unfixed nature of toponyms in terms of location. Finally, the paper shows that there is a reciprocal relationship between the toponym and the image of a particular district, which can affect the functions and activities that flourish within it.
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    “Night Hawks” watching over the city: redeployment of night watchmen and the politics of public space in Turkey
    (Sage Publications, 2019-11) Batuman, Bülent; Erkip, Feyzan
    Technological advances have enormously increased surveillance techniques in the last three decades. In this article, we scrutinize the re-instatement of bekçi, the traditional night watchmen patrolling the residential neighborhoods in Turkey, which was obsolete for decades. We analyze the re-emergence of the bekçi in relation to the dynamics of urbanization, and with a perspective of power and surveillance. Our discussion bridges the Foucauldian notion of “visibility,” equating it with being subject to surveillance, and the Arendtian emphasis on “appearance” as the precondition for a claim to public space (hence, citizenship) in order the uncover the role of visibility within the mechanisms of power in public space. We argue that although the bekçi seems outmoded, especially within the context of ever-increasing advancement of surveillance technologies; its recent deployment in the public spaces of Turkish metropolises brings about new modes of politics of visibility parallel to the changing modality of the urban environment.