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Monday, October 27, 2014

The gentrification offensive: repression and resistance in Istanbul (PHOTOS) - Your Middle East

The gentrification offensive: repression and resistance in Istanbul (PHOTOS)
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Gentrification in Turkey has taken on an interesting and almost unique dimension. Not only is the AKP attempting (largely successfully) to inscribe it’s myopic neo-liberal vision on society in the form of re-development or urban renewal, it is imposing architecturally a top-down restructuring of the social sphere, attempting to cleanse from Istanbul and other sites of power those who’s socio-economic composition defies the hegemonic culture as designed by the state. The hybridity of the AKPs melding of both Islamic and capitalist values makes for a particularly aggressive version of gentrification which not only aims at homogenization of culture but also, at stratification of class through processes of gentrification and class-cleansing, enclosure of public space and the dystopian proliferation of gated-communities.

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