Browsing by Author "Erman, T."

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Open Access
Alevi politics in contemporary Turkey
(Taylor & Francis Group Ltd., 2000) Erman, T.; Göker, E.
Open Access
Becoming " urban " or remaining " rural ": the views of Turkish rural-to-urban migrants on the " integration " question
(Cambridge University Press, 1998) Erman, T.
The mass migration from rural areas to larger cities in the Third World and the rapid social changes entailed by this transformation have attracted the attention of social and political scientists since the 1950s. The problematic issue of the “integration” of rural migrants into the urban society and the changes this transformation has brought about have long been among the most studied questions. Yet they still call for more research to increase our understanding of the phenomenon, particularly in our era, which is witnessing radical shifts from earlier times in terms of social, economic, and technological characteristics. The question of “integration to what?” becomes important in political and practical terms. In the 1950s, when mass migration to cities started, the answer to this question seemed quite clear. The cities were the places of the modernizing elites, especially in the case of Ankara, the capital of the modern Turkish Republic. As in other Third World countries, the modernizing bureaucratic and military elites of the early republic, who had assumed the role of transforming the society into a modern, Western one, regarded the city as an effective means for the acculturation of its inhabitants to modern–Western values and ways of life. The modernization theory, which maintains a dichotomy between rural and urban, supported this idea.
Open Access
Emergent local initiative and the city: the case of neighbourhood associations of the better-off classes in post-1990 urban Turkey
(Sage Publications Ltd., 2007) Erman, T.; Yıldar, M. C.
This article investigates the voluntary local organisations of the better-off classes in the Turkish urban context. Based on empirical research conducted with four neighbourhood associations (NAs), information is provided regarding their process of establishment, leadership, autonomy, goals and projects, resources and obstacles, which points to the significance of context. The research demonstrates that Turkish NAs differ from those in the West in terms of their commitment to ideological as much as pragmatic issues. In their response to the 'Islamist' versus 'secularist' polarisation in society, they seek to create their own localities as the places of secular and cosmopolitan people; and in their response to the increasingly unregulated and poorly serviced city, they struggle to create orderly localities protected from unlawful rent-seeking practices and equipped with adequate amenities. The NAs may be regarded as civic initiatives that empower the locality. Yet, by doing so, they may cause uneven development in urban space.
Open Access
Ethnographie du gecekondu. Un habitat autoconstruit de la périphérie urbaine
(Presses Universitaires de France, 2014) Erman, T.
This article addresses the perspectives of residents or former residents of gecekondus who, in the processes of urban transformation, have moved to housing estates of high-rise blocks built either by public or private developers. Through the respondents' narratives of the gecekondu as experienced and remembered, emerges the sharp contrast between the positive meanings attributed to the gecekondu by their residents and the negative meanings attributed to it in the hegemonic discourse in society. In the recent practices of the transformation of gecekondu neighborhoods into apartment districts, the exchange value of the gecekondu tends to overshadow its use value. Yet the desire for the gecekondu life preserves its importance for gecekondu people.
Open Access
Formalization by the state, re-informalization by the people: a gecekondu transformation housing estate as site of multiple discrepancies
(Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2016) Erman, T.
This article demonstrates residents' transformative practices and discusses attendant outcomes to contribute to an understanding of state-built housing estates for people affected by urban transformation projects. It draws upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a social housing estate (K-TOKI) in the Northern Ankara Entrance Urban Transformation Project (NAEUTP). It addresses questions on why formalization of informal housing takes place today, under what conditions it is countered by re-informalization practices, and what the outcomes of this process are. As informal housing became formalized by NAEUTP, gecekondu dwellers were forced into formalized spaces and lives within K-TOKI, which was based on a middle-class lifestyle in its design and its legally required central management. Informality re-emerged in K-TOKI when the state's housing institution, in response to the estate's poor marketability, moved out, allowing residents to reappropriate spaces to meet their needs and form their own management system. When cultural norms that are inscribed in the built environment and financial norms that treat residents as clients conflict with everyday practices and financial capabilities, the urban poor increasingly engage in acts of informality. I argue that the outcome of this informality in a formal context is a site of multiple discrepancies. © 2016 Urban Research Publications Limited
Open Access
The impact of migration on Turkish rural women: four emergent patterns
(Sage Publications, Inc., 1998) Erman, T.
This article explores the diverse experiences of Turkish rural migrant women in the city and how city living enters the definition of gender and the distribution of power in the migrant household. It draws on data collected in an ethnographic study of migrants in Ankara, Turkey, and examines whether this migration improves or deteriorates migrant women's position in the family. Specifically, it identifies four groups of migrant women and speculates on some of the factors that shape their diverse experiences. The data reveal that city living affects the position of migrant women to varying degrees, depending on their particular Islamic sect; the demands made on them to assure family survival and achievement; and, to some extent, their age, socioeconomic status, educational level, position in the life cycle, and the status and economic wealth of the wife's family and the wife's relationship with it.
Open Access
Küresel ve Yerel Dinamikler Altında ‘Anadolu Kaplanı’ Kentleri
(2013-01) Erman, T.
Bu makale, ‘Anadolu kaplanları’ olarak adlandırılan Gaziantep, Kayseri, Denizli, Çorum, Malatya ve Konya örnekleri üzerinden, ekonominin liberalleşmesi ve desentralizasyon ile yerelin önem kazanması sonucunda birtakım Anadolu kentlerinde ortaya çıkan mekânsal dönüşümleri anlamayı hedeflemektedir. Küresel ekonominin tüketim yüzü olan AVM’ler ve yeni prestij alanları olarak sunulan güvenlikli siteler bu kentlere ulaşmış mıdır? ‘Anadolu kaplanı’ kentlerindeki yeni sermaye birikimleri, kentlerin ekonomisini yönlendiren grupları küresel tüketim kalıp ve mekânları içine çekmekte midir? Yerel olan nedir? Yeni iş olanaklarının ortaya çıkması ile göç almaları sonucu bu kentlerdeki yoksulluk görüntü ve mekânlarına nasıl bir yaklaşım söz konusudur? Neoliberal yerel yönetimlerin kendi kaynaklarını kendilerinin yaratmaları ve kentlerini ‘markalaştırarak’ diğer kentlerle rekabet içine girmeleri durumu bu kentler için ne derece geçerlidir? Hükümetin girişimci Toplu Konut İdaresi (TOKİ)’nin öncülüğünü yaptığı inşaat sektörü bu kentleri ne düzeyde ve ne yönde dönüştürmektedir? ‘Anadolu kaplanı’ kentlerindeki dönüşümleri metropol kentlerdeki dönüşümlerden farklı kılan nedir? Makale bu sorular çerçevesinde ‘Anadolu kaplanı’ kentlerindeki yeni oluşumları tartışmaktadır.
Open Access
The meaning of city living for rural migrant women and their role in migration: the case of Turkey
(Elsevier, 1997) Erman, T.
This article explores the meaning of city living for Turkish women and the role women play both in the migration process and in establishing their lives in the city. It brings out the voices of women and lets them speak about their own experiences. It challenges the stereotypical images of Islamic migrant women who are depicted as passive followers of their husbands to the city and as subordinate or passive in the city. It uncovers the importance of religious sects (i.e., Alevi and Sunnite) in determining the relative power of Muslim women. It demonstrates the initiative and hard work of migrant women, and hence evidences their struggles, which bring some positive changes to their lives in the city. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd
Open Access
Money-earning activities and empowerment experiences of rural migrant women in the city: the case of Turkey
(Pergamon Press, 2002) Erman, T.; Kalaycıoǧlu, S.; Rittersberger-Tılıç, H.
Synopsis — This article investigates empowerment in relation to money-earning activities in the context of rural-to-urban migrant women in poor families in Turkey. Acknowledging the exploitative character of employment accessible to migrant women, it asks whether working migrant women gain something in their families in return for their economic contributions. The article points to the traditional role of men as the heads of the family and family honor (namus) as the cultural basis which acts against the empowerment of migrant women in Turkish society. It attempts to understand empowerment as articulated by the women themselves based upon their lived experiences. While doing so, it examines women’s positions in the family with regard to their role in the intra-family decision making, their degree of control over their earned money, and male violence in the family. It further discusses whether or not the experiences of migrant women can be considered as empowerment, and in this way it aims to contribute to the theoretical development of the concept ‘‘empowerment.’’
Open Access
The mosque community of "lower-class" Turks in the United States: Quo Vadis?
(International Journal of Turkish Studies, 2013-09-01) Erman, T.
This article investigates a mosque community established by “lower-class” Turkish immigrant tailors in the United States called the “Sultan” mosque. Based on an ethnographic study, the article makes the following points: The mosque is the inclusion project of this group of tailors in a foreign society. Being a “lower-class” community built around the mosque, the tailor community faced exclusion both from the secular and religious upper-class Turkish immigrant groups and so remained a small group. The ecology of the small group produced a politics of tolerance in the mosque despite the first-generation migrants’ efforts to draw strict boundaries between themselves and the others (“us vs. them”), reversing their own stigmatization. The 9/11 event in their host country, moreover, increased toleration in the mosque, as the mosque administration had to take on the new role of fighting against the stigmatization of Muslims as Islamist fundamentalists. More recently, under the influence of politics in the immigrants’ home country of Turkey, the mosque has entered a process of transformation from a modest community of tailors, where moderation is observed, to a community of a tarikat (religious sect), where a radical form of Islam is observed.
Open Access
Neighborhood effects and women's agency regarding poverty and patriarchy in a Turkish slum
(Sage Publications Ltd., 2008) Erman, T.; Türkyilmaz, S.
This paper aims to understand the interplay between the neighborhood (spatial) effects of poverty, ethnicity, kin, and patriarchy, and women's agency in the context of an inner-city slum in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. It is based on a field study that focuses on the experiences of women residents - that is, rural migrants known for their dependency on neighborhood spaces - and their grown-up daughters who were raised in the city. The neighborhood context - namely, the social and physical isolation of the site, the limited access to urban institutions, and the growing risk of crime - has a negative impact on women's lives, restraining but not determining women's agency. Women's struggle for agency in this context is contingent on other factors, including whether they live in ethnic clusters and whether their husbands are working, as well as urban experience and individual biography. © 2008 Pion Ltd and its Licensors.
Open Access
The "Other of the Other" and "unregulated territories" in the urban periphery: gecekondu violence in the 2000s with a focus on the Esenler case, Istanbul
(Elsevier, 2004-02) Erman, T.; Eken, A.
This article investigates the broader question of collective urban violence in "peripheral" (squatter) neighborhoods in the capitalist semi-periphery. Based upon a specific case, namely, the Karabayr neighborhood in Esenler, Istanbul, it aims to identify the potential sources of conflict and the conditions under which they turn into violence. To achieve this goal, first a review of the changing relationship of peripheral neighborhoods with the state is offered in a historical perspective. Then, the Karabayr neighborhood and the recent violence it experienced are briefly described, based on the information that appeared in the press and the Internet. And this is followed by a discussion of the possible causes of conflict and violence in the context of the changing conditions in the urban periphery in the 2000s. The transformation of peripheral land into commodity, the increasing physical proximity of residential groups due to land scarcity and building density, the asymmetric position of different residential groups with the state, and the unguarded socialization of the youth explain the increasing tendency towards violence in the urban periphery. In this process, the urban periphery emerges as "unregulated territories" that inhabit the "Other of the Other". © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Open Access
The politics of squatter(gecekondu) studies in Turkey: the changing representations of rural migrants in the academic discourse
(Sage Publications Ltd., 2001) Erman, T.
This article aims to develop a critical approach to squatter (gecekondu) studies in Turkey and investigates the various representations of the gecekondu people in these studies in different periods by placing them in their social, political and economic contexts. It details changes in the representation of the gecekondu population from the ‘rural Other’ in the 1950s and 1960s, to the ‘disadvantaged Other’ in the 1970s and early 1980s, to the ‘urban poor Other(s)’, the ‘undeserving rich Other(s)’ and the ‘culturally inferior Other(s) as Sub-culture’ between the mid 1980s and mid 1990s, and nally to the ‘threatening/varos¸lu Other’ in the late 1990s. It asserts that, while the approach to the gecekondu people varies from an e´litist one, to one which is sympathetic to the gecekondu people, this group, nevertheless, has been consistently the ‘inferior Other’ for Turkish gecekondu researchers.
Open Access
Rendering responsible, provoking desire: women and home in squatter/slum renewal projects in the Turkish context
(Routledge, 2017) Erman, T.; Hatiboğlu, B.
This article is situated at the intersection of urban restructuring, cultural conservatism and neoliberalism in the Turkish context to understand the new subject formations of poor women as they are relocated to high-rise apartment blocks in slum/squatter renewal projects by the prospect of homeownership via long-term mortgage loans. It contributes by showing the gendered effects of urban transformation on poor women as neoliberalism and conservatism interact. It draws upon two ethnographic studies that reveal women’s experiences embedded both in neoliberalism and patriarchy. In neoliberalism, women’s participation in the informal job market was promoted as they were made responsible for contributing to mortgage payments, and they were brought into consumption as they were provoked the desire for good homes via furnishing, and in patriarchy, women’s traditional roles in social reproduction were demanded in spite of their new roles and responsibilities. The study ponders women’s differentiated negotiations with patriarchy which resisted radical challenges when the family and the home framed women’s new responsibilities and desires. The rising conservatism rooted in Islam in Turkey, which prioritizes the family over individual women, created the conditions for it. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Open Access
Rural migrants and patriarchy in Turkish cities
(Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2001) Erman, T.
This article investigates patriarchy in the context of migration to cities in Turkey. It focuses on the ways in which patriarchy reproduces itself in the lives of migrants - for example through the local community, which reproduces traditional patriarchal control in the urban context, and through the social construction of female labour within the framework of the ideology of familialism and the housewife ideology in which women's economic contributions are devalued. Furthermore, the labour market, which offers low-level jobs for migrant women, as well as growing concerns about moral corruption in the city, inflated by the media, act to keep women at home and inside their communities under the control of 'their men'. The article also examines the attempts of individual migrant women to create niches for themselves in which they enjoy some autonomy and find personal meaning. This suggests a dynamic relationship between women and patriarchy. By examining the significant role of culture in reproducing patriarchy, the article contributes to a further elaboration of the concept of patriarchy developed by Walby.
Open Access
Squatter (gecekondu) housing versus apartment housing-Turkish rural-to-urban migrant residents perspectives
(Elsevier, 1997-03) Erman, T.
This paper investigates the meaning of squatter (gecekondu) and apartment housing for rural-to-urban migrant residents and their perceptions and preferences regarding this issue in the context of Turkey. The research, conducted in Ankara in a gecekondu settlement, a newly developing apartment district and an established apartment district, reveals that gecekondu and apartment housing hold different meanings for their different types of residents. Gecekondu housing is perceived very positively by those rural migrants who are oriented to the rural community, particularly for the ‘gecekondu-rooted’ women who spend much of their time in the neighbourhood. This is so because of the way of life gecekondu housing provides, for example, close relationship, with neighbours and spontaneous relationships with the outside. On the other hand, the association of gecekondu settlements with rural migrants in the larger society creates a very negative perception of gecekondu housing in the case of those rural migrants who are oriented to established urban society, particularly for young women (‘younger modernizers’). Low standard of housing, and inadequate services and infrastructure are major problems with squatter housing shared by all residents. On the other hand, apartment housing is perceived by its rural migrant residents as a means of becoming closer to established urban society, and hence as a means of granting them higher status. Unlike the case of gecekondus, this perception of apartments creates a general feeling of satisfaction and a higher degree of commitment among apartment residents, shaping their preferences for apartments. Apartments are further perceived as housing environments which offer ‘clean and comfortable lives’ and urban services to their residents. However, apartment residence is not preferred by those migrants, particularly women, who are oriented to rural community and who need community support and ‘squatter spirit’ in their lives. Gender, time spent in the city, socio-economic status and age were found to be associated with gecekondulapartment preferences of migrants. Copyright 0 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd
Open Access
Understanding the experiences of the politics of urbanization in two gecekondu (squatter) neighborhoods under two urban regimes: ethnography in the urban periphery of Ankara, Turkey
(The Institute, Inc., 2011) Erman, T.
This article investigates the politics of urbanization in the Turkish context. It is built upon the premise that the "urban coalition" in the era of nationalist developmentalism, which was populist in nature, is replaced by a "new urban coalition," a neoliberal one, since the 1980s. I argue that the bargaining power of gecekondu (squatter) residents with municipal authorities for their "extra-legal" practices in building their houses in the former era was lost after neoliberal policies were adopted. This argument is substantiated by the ethnographic fieldwork in which the experiences of gecekondu residents in building, improving and (not) defending their houses and neighborhoods were obtained. Two ethnographic studies were conducted in two different sites in Ankara: a neighborhood where the Alevis were the majority, which became the site of leftist mobilization in the 1970s, and a district where conservative Sunnis lived, who supported right-wing politics. By situating the two neighborhoods in the context of the two different urban regimes, namely, those in the populist and neoliberal eras, the article points out the changing relationship of the gecekondu residents with the state, showing variances with respect to the differing political positions and social compositions of the two neighborhoods. © 2011 The Institute, Inc.
Open Access
Women and the housing environment: the experiences of Turkish migrant women in squatter (gecekondu) and apartment housing
(Sage Publications, Inc., 1996-11-01) Erman, T.
This article investigates the expeNences of rural migrant women in an apartment district and a squatter (gecekondu) settlement in Ankara, Turkey. It demonstrates the significant role the housing environment plays in the lives of women, both by defining who they are and by shaping their daily lives through encouraging some behavior and discouraging others. Gecekondu housing is potentially a source of negative identity for those migrant women whose reference group is the modem established urbanites, whereas those migrant women who take the gecekondu community as their reference group tend to preserve a positive image of themselves. On the other hand, apartment housing enhances a feeling of achievement in its residents of village origin. Furthermore, gecekondu housing encourages intimate social relations and thereby social control, whereas apartment housing demands some formality in neighborly relations and provides privacy. As social agents, women use their environment actively, attempting to foster certain images of themselves, and communicafing those images to others as well as to themselves. This is particularly apparent in the case of modern gecekondu women who, by their outward appearances and demeanor, challenge the negative image attributed to gecekondu residents by the larger society.
Open Access
Women and the housing environment: The experiences of Turkish migrant women in squatter (Gecekondu) and apartment housing
(1996) Erman, T.
This article investigates the experiences of rural migrant women in an apartment district and a squatter (gecekondu) settlement in Ankara, Turkey. It demonstrates the significant role the housing environment plays in the lives of women, both by defining who they are and by shaping their daily lives through encouraging some behavior and discouraging others. Gecekondu housing is potentially a source of negative identity for those migrant women whose reference group is the modern established urbanites, whereas those migrant women who take the gecekondu community as their reference group tend to preserve a positive image of themselves. On the other hand, apartment housing enhances a feeling of achievement in its residents of village origin. Furthermore, gecekondu housing encourages intimate social relations and thereby social control, whereas apartment housing demands some formality in neighborly relations and provides privacy. As social agents, women use their environment actively, attempting to foster certain images of themselves, and communicating those images to others as well as to themselves. This is particularly apparent in the case of modern gecekondu women who, by their outward appearances and demeanor, challenge the negative image attributed to gecekondu residents by the larger society.