Browsing by Subject "Ethnography"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

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
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
Researching Islamic marketing: past and future perspectives
(Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2011) Sandıkcı, Ö.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the reasons underlying the recent interest on Islamic marketing, discusses past research on the topic and offers a future research perspective. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a critical review of the existing literature. It offers ethnoconsumerism as a way to develop a situated understanding of Muslim consumers and businesses. Findings: Two distinct phases, omission and discovery, characterize the existing literature. Omission derives from the stereotyping of Muslims as traditional and uncivilized people and Islam as incompatible with capitalist consumer ideology. Discovery relates to the identification of Muslims as an untapped and viable consumer segment and the increasing visibility of Muslim entrepreneurs. Research limitations/implications: A deeper understanding of Muslim consumers and marketers requires doing away with essentialist approaches that reify difference. Instead of focusing on differences future research needs to pay attention to how such differences play out in the daily lives of consumers and examine the religious, political, cultural and economic resources, forces and tensions that consumers experience and negotiate as they (re)construct and communicate their identities as Muslims. Practical implications: Managers should not assume Muslims to be a homogeneous and preexisting segment. They should focus on the daily practices for which the product may be relevant and generate solutions that will help Muslims live proper Islamic lives. Originality/value: The paper draws attention to the potential problems in carrying out research on Islamic marketing and highlights the dangers of an essentialist perspective.
Open Access
Writing culture: postmodernism and ethnography
(Sage Publications, 2006) Mutman, M.
In a radical critical gesture, postmodern ethnography emphasizes the concepts of writing, narrative and dialogue against a merely scientific recording of facts. Interestingly, it does not question an outsider's accessibility to cultural space. Instead, ethnographic knowledge is grounded on a philosophical claim on the limited nature of native knowledge itself and is rearticulated by an inclusive gesture which involves the native voice in an authentic expression of diversity. This is a redemptive gesture which fails to interrogate the limit of knowledge and reproduces the conventional ethnographic demand that the other should speak up. Following a deconstructive reading, the article suggests that the ethnographic text should instead open itself to the limit and should remark the radical loss it implies as an ethical opening of and questioning by the other, because this is the limit where the name of 'Man' is inscribed as the name of the native informant. Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications.