Do not mess around in this neighborhood!
Gentrification, Multiplicity, and Mess in Tophane
Subject:
Thesis–FinalDraft
Date: August15,2012
Name:
LeventÖzata
Supervisor: MattijsvandePort
SecondReader:JulieMcBrien
1
Table of Contents
Prelude
3
The Incident
4
The theoretical background of gentrification
6
Aesthetic gentrification
8
Gentrification in Istanbul
11
Beyond Gentrification
13
“The attack was spontaneous…”
16
Being Tophaneli
17
Fragmented Continuum of Tradition
18
Newcomers and ‘Oldcomers’
19
One bottle of beer
21
People Forget, city never
23
September 6th-7th, 1955
24
Rosebud
26
From London to Tophane
27
The story of those who don’t have a voice
30
Selfing/othering in gentrification
33
In lieu of conclusion
35
Last words
39
Bibliography
41
2
Prelude
I am such a mess.
Despite the fact that the whole setting around me tries to put me into an order, to clarify my mind
with explanations and analysis, I am such a mess. It is not a choice. I cannot choose to be messy
or un-messy. It is just the way it is. I am such a mess.
There are papers—stapled, unstapled, white, yellow, orange, moist, dry, hand-written, printed,
with images, overwritten, empty—all over the room. The room… The room that I have been
living in for only three weeks. Before that, I had another room, and another one before the one
that was before this one. And so it goes. This is my seventh room in the last year. I am constantly
moving from one place to another. And the papers… The papers, of course, come with me from
one place to another. Yet, the mess does not go away.
My mind is a mess. How many things can you think of at the same time? Everything is blurry and
fragmented. You cannot look at one thing and instantly understand what is happening. The
perception does not remain fixed; it changes and changes again when the time has come.
The neighborhood is a mess. The streets are full of holes ready to trap one’s foot. The walls are
full of ripped posters, stencils, wall paintings, and graffiti without any integrity, painted
hazardously. Every single person inside or outside the neighborhood has his/her own explanation
for what happened, for what is happening now in the neighborhood. Thus, everybody has a single
reality, a definiteness, a clearly, a singularity that adds to the mess. Yet, these singular realities
are temporary and messy as well, just like the posters on the walls of Tophane put one on to
another. Together, it creates a diverse, multiple, temporary, confusing, complex, sophisticated,
and messy sphere of existing and living.
This paper is a mess! Not because it claims to be, but because the research and the topic is messy,
because the researcher is messy. And the messiness of the field is not a reflection of the
researcher’s mind in the real world. Quite the opposite, the mess out there in the field messes with
the researcher’s mind of a bigger extend. Simple explanation, single way of looking, linear
causality are, thus, remain insufficient to narrate the mess out-there.
And this paper aims to be the two-dimensional refection of the messiness that I thought of,
experienced, lived through, studied, researched during the six months that I spent in the field, in
Tophane, Istanbul.
3
The incident
A part from the headline in one of the Turkish newspapers in the morning of September 22nd,
2010:
On September 21, 2010, five galleries in Tophane, Istanbul were hosting their visitors for a joint
opening that announces the beginning of art season. However, the opening had ‘unexpected
visitors’. Tophane galleries were attacked by angry mob, with reports of men armed with knives,
iron bars, broken bottles, frozen oranges and pepper spray beating people who sipped sangria
and smoked cigarettes on sidewalks. As many as 15 people were reported wounded, including
visitors from Poland, the Netherlands, Germany and Britain, and a British-Turkish artist who
required stitches to close a head wound. It was said that the visitors were assaulted because "they
drank alcoholic beverages on the street" in front of the gallery. Other sources claimed that the
scuffle occurred because of "music played with high volume." The night ended in hospitals and
police headquarters. Seven suspects were detained and released.
Theories abound, including a plot by organized criminals to block gentrification that impedes
illegal activities; anger from stricter Muslim landlords backed by a government that opposes
alcohol; rage by ultranationalists who object to Ataturk-twisting sculptures; even a plot by the
Deep State to discredit residents in order to more easily evict them from valuable real estate. One
of the art galley owners reported that the attackers outside her three-year-old gallery were
yelling, “Don’t drink alcohol!” “Get out of here!” and “We don’t want you here!” While her
lease does ban the sale of alcohol, it does not ban her from serving it for free, she said, and added
“The problem is that we have different lives from much of the neighbourhood. They aren’t happy
because we don’t want to live like them. They are selling drugs, trafficking in women,” she
added. “This is like Harlem used to be. And because of the growing gallery scene here, we are in
the papers every day, and they don’t like that.” (Tophane’de Guncel Sanata Saldiri [Attack to
contemporary art in Tophane], 2010 Sep. 22)
The attack left behind wounds, broken glasses, anger, tears, and lots of the confusion. A
confusion that made everybody questions the socio-political dimensions of Tophane. The
neighbourhood became the first topic in the headlines, journalists rushed to the neighbourhood to
find out simple answers about the attack. Gentrification along with other issues became the main
discussion topic in news bulletins, in coffeehouses, and in dinner tables. However, it did not last
long. The interest of the general public over Tophane has been decreased, without having answers
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for the questions like what was going on in Tophane? Who are the main actors of the conflict?
What caused to the attack?
At the moment, I was in Amsterdam, following the event through newspapers, social media blogs
and TVs. I remember that I tended to see the attacks as a resistance against the gentrification
process that has been occurring all around the borough of Beyoğlu. Hence my research subject
was born. After this attack, I decided Tophane as my field to make a research on gentrification
because I considered the neighborhood as a convenient, yet peculiar, case for aesthetic
gentrification, which not only allows me to investigate how different practices and discourses of
gentrification from different parts of society are framed, but also question how these practices
challenge scholarly discussion of gentrification in the academia?
There are various characteristics that make Tophane an excellent case for the study of
gentrification, yet simultaneously differentiate it from other similar areas. Tophane is a
remarkably vibrant and multicultural neighborhood. Historically it was home to Istanbul’s nonMuslim community, and, as such, the majority of the inhabitants were Greeks, Armenians and
Jews. For centuries, the neighborhood hosted the main trade port of Istanbul, and despite the fact
that the port was eventually closed in the mid-1980s, this turned the neighborhood into a meeting
point for the working class with different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Being a port
neighborhood for a long time has also had another effect on the neighborhood: it turned it into a
‘twilight zone’, where drug dealing, prostitution, gambling, and criminality are a daily activity.
After the closure of the port, Tophane became a ghost town. Old docks remained empty for a long
time. The demography of the neighborhood remained stable for almost twenty years. The
establishment of Istanbul’s biggest modern art museum—Istanbul Modern Art Museum—in one
of the old warehouses in the old docks of Tophane, however, led to a deep change in the
neighborhood, as the presence of the museum encouraged galleries to move into the
neighborhood. This was the first step that introduced the inhabitants of Tophane to the art world,
which led to that attack on the night of September 21st, 2010 (from now on September 2010
attack).
The attack triggered new discussions and announced that the relations in Tophane will change.
However, the attack is, of course, not the whole story. As stated by many experts, sociologists,
anthropologists, urban developers, and the neighborhood inhabitants ‘gentrification’ might be a
clue to a better understanding of the attack, because gentrification is not only a process that
describe the physical change in a given space, but also a torch that sheds lights on the sociality of
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the neighborhoods. However, I found the impact of gentrification on the attack is only partially
true.
The attack of September 2010, along, with gentrification, involves several issues like resistance,
violence, conservative life style, art, politics, and different ways of socializing. Eventually, in this
paper, I want to narrate the story of all these heterogeneous entities in Tophane in the light of
actor-network theory (ANT) by moving beyond the concept of gentrification without forgetting it.
This theory is not a hazardous choice, since the attack of September 2010 is not merely about
gentrification, rather it includes discussions over Universalistic Grand Theories of gentrification.
There theories will be insufficient to show the heterogeneity of Tophane, because these kind of
approach to the city space while focusing on a single fact, without any concern to the periphery
and the network around. Bruno Latour states that human beings in a certain social network does
not merely interact with other human beings, they also do interact with human beings and endless
other materials and ideas too. (In John Law, 1992, p.381). For this reason, material semiotics –
often traveling under the discussed short hand of ANT—can prove helpful in my analysis.
In this paper, I will, first, give a theoretical background of gentrification that includes the birth of
the term, aesthetic interpretations of gentrification, and gentrification in Istanbul. Secondly, I will
discuss the possible commitments of the actor-network theory to the gentrification literature, and
how a multiplicity of narration will add to the gentrification literature. Later on, I will introduce
my four informants: Black, Crocus, Rosebud and Depo. They will tell us the story of the
neighborhood touching upon the issues of violence, newcomers and established, tradition,
memory of the space, exclusion, and selfing/othering. Finally, I will conclude by arguing how
different dimensions, complexity and diversity on the street has been lost in the gentrification
literature.
The theoretical background of gentrification
Even this brief history of Tophane gives us a clue on how to relate the phenomenon in Tophane
with the issue of gentrification. In general, gentrification might be defined as a process that
transforms inner-city areas, where low property investment spurs a process of reinvestment and is
accompanied by social demographics, new forms of building, new aesthetics and new cultural
norms. The British sociologist Ruth Glass first coined the term ‘gentrification’ itself in 1964 in
order to describe the processes that occurred in the inner-city of London. This is how she
describes it:
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One by one, many of the working class quarters of London have been invaded by the
middle-classes—upper and lower. Shabby, modest mews and cottages—two rooms up
and two down—have been taken over, when their leases have expired, and have
become elegant, expensive residences [...]. Once this process of gentrification starts in
a district it goes on rapidly until all or most of the original working-class occupiers
are displaced, and the whole social character of the district is changed. (1964, p.xviiixix)
Inspired by Glass, gentrification researchers and academics developed theory-driven explanations
for urban change. The first explanation is the production-led approach, which pays enormous
emphasis on the cycle of disinvestment and investment in the property market (Lees, Slater &
Wyly, 2008). Neil Smith (1979, 1996) underlined the difference between the actual and the
potential ground rent of a place with the ‘rent gap’ theory, underlining “the discourse of the
revanchist city.” Smith (1996) coined the concept of ‘revanchist city’ to highlight that the epoch
of neoliberal revanchism was characterized by a discourse of revenge against all kind of political
minorities, such as the working class, feminists, environmental activists, LGBT, and recent
immigrants. Both Lees and Smith address the role of the capital flow in the urban transformation.
Their approach to urban analysis could be considered Marxist, as it places the role of class at the
center of the analysis. Hamnett summarizes the definition of a production-led approach towards
gentrification as “a physical, economical, social, and cultural phenomenon [which] commonly
involves the invasion by middle class or higher-income groups of previously working-class
neighborhoods, or ‘twilight areas’ and the replacement or displacement of many of the original
inhabitants” (1984, p.284).
Production-led approaches mainly consider gentrification as a top-down process. Although it is
not clearly stated, it fails to define the actors of gentrification. On the contrary, consumption-led
approaches examine the preferences, and the decisions of the consumers as the pioneers of the
gentrification process, and analyze gentrification on a much more individual level. These
approaches take into account individual actions, consumerist habits, and preferences as the main
source of the gentrification process, which is highly informed by liberal humanist analysis
(Caulfield, 1994; Ley, 1996). Consumption-led academicians consider the gentrifying “new
middle class,” creative class, or, more colloquially, ‘bobos’ (bohemian bourgeois) as the pioneers
and thus the reasons of gentrification. These people succeed in combining a bourgeois work ethic
with a neoliberal consumption culture.
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During the 1990s and 2000s, academics like Smith, Lees, and Ley attempted to bring and hold
these two perspectives together in order to “initiate a vibrant, complicated, sometimes
counterproductive set of arguments” (Smith, 1996, p.39). The social and economic changes that
occurred in those two decades played a crucial role in the development of gentrification theory.
Hackwork and Smith (2001, p.468) argue that in the 1990s, gentrification expanded into remote
areas, large-scale developers and the state began to participate in the process. The resistance –
during 1980s, especially in New York City, a few etnicity driven riots and/or resistance
movement took place in the gentrifying neighborhoods (see Newman&Wyly 2005)--had declined.
In the 2000s, the state had increasingly become one of the main parties in the gentrification
process. As a result, today gentrification has become a complicated process that involves various
actors, including the state, bobos, individual or corporate developers and the like, who all claim to
be repackaging the image of space in order to ‘optimize’ the beneficial use of the space. It is
important to notice that such hijacking of normally ‘resistant’ themes and issues is a growing
characteristic of neoliberal state and of its citizenship. At the same time, this also allows very
traditional models of ‘modernist’ projects of centrally directed change of ‘optimization’.
It is worth mentioning that the literature on gentrification, no matter the perspective, is mainly
positioned critically towards the issue. Yet, there are a few researches that address the “positive”
effects of gentrification on an existing set of residents (Freeman, 2006; Freeman and Braconi,
2004). They argue that the increase in the value of property does not necessarily trigger
displacement; on the contrary, the process creates economic opportunities for the original
inhabitants, which outweigh the negative aspects of gentrification. Unsurprisingly, this argument
is criticized for underestimating the victims of gentrification and for approaching the issue from
the perspective of the gentry. However, it is an interesting positioning in order to think about
resistance and the many problems that subaltern scholars have always faced in making a
perpetrator/victim dichotomy that is somehow essentialized instead of being fluid in the
conceptualizations.
Aesthetic gentrification
Rosalyn Deutche and Cara Gendel Ryan, in their study The Fine Arts of Gentrification, use the
example of Lower East Side, New York in order to illustrate and historicize aesthetic
gentrification. Quoting Robinson and McCormick, they describe the neighborhood as the “unique
blend of poverty, punk rock, drugs, arson, Hell’s Angels, winos, prostitutes and dilapidated
housing that adds up to an adventurous avant-garde setting of considerable cachet” (1984, p.93).
However, after the 1980s, the area became “the scene of a new art phenomenon” (Ibid., p.91). Art
8
galleries started to move into the neighborhood; since the rents were low the neighborhood was a
perfect place for bohemian classes. In order to transform this area into an art district, “the entire
apparatus of the art establishment” —artists, art dealers, collectors, art consumers, galleries, and
museums—worked together to dislodge unwanted elements from the area (Ibid. 92). As usual,
these were working-class people and the urban poor. Cafés, boutiques, shops, galleries, and
museums replaced the shops and the living space of the working class and operated as the broom
that cleaned off the ”dust” in the area, and, thus, the neighborhood became a perfect space for the
consumption of art and art-related products.
Building upon the conceptualization of the geographer David Ley, the sociologists Stuart
Cameron and Joan Coaffee developed a more sophisticated view on gentrification and identified
three waves of gentrification. The first wave is a “small-scale, autonomous movement of
individual middle-class households into working-class inner-city neighborhoods” (2005, p.41).
They argue that these pioneers are “social groups rich in cultural capital but poor in economical
capital” (Ibid. 40), thus mainly the artists. Since they lack economical capital, they prefer to move
into cheap places, and their cultural capital allows them to transform the environment that they
live in. This first wave adds the issue of cultural capital into the literature of gentrification.
The second wave is “the commoditization of art in gentrification.” During the transformation,
Cameron and Coaffee argue, “it is the aesthetic eye that transforms ugliness into a source of
admiration” (2005, p.41). With this aesthetic eye, the members of the art world have the ability to
transform the neighborhood. The aesthetic touch of the art apparatus eases, according to Cameron
and Coaffee, the “integration of the gentrification into a wider range of economic and cultural
processes” (2005, p.42). This wave brings the investment of economic capital owners to the
artistic milieu. The commoditization of the artistic milieu is the process of property and economic
capital investment, which takes “advantage of the ‘aesthetic conjuncture’ in which ‘artists’ living
habits became a cultural model for the middle classes” (Ibid.). The change of the shops and the
establishment of consumption places meant for the artistic middle class (such as trendy bars or
boutiques) usually ends in a tremendous increase in the rental prices of buildings and apartments
and thus in the dislodgment of the “original” inhabitants of the gentrified neighborhood.
Cameron and Coaffee (2005) argue that, in the last ten years, a third wave of gentrification has
been developed. The accomplishment of the aesthetic embellishment of the neighborhood leads to
a further step of commercialization of the whole artistic milieu. This third movement can be
called the “financification” of the gentrified neighborhood with the help of cultural-public
policies, which are the reflections of the neoliberal paradigm, namely the financial activities that
9
use the means of cultural industry as a tool to make profit. This wave “evolved into a vehicle for
transforming a whole area into landscaped complexes that pioneer a comprehensive class-infected
urban remake” (2005, p.44). The landscaped complexes here integrate “recreation, consumption,
production and pleasure, as well as residences.” This movement led to a change from “festivals to
festival markets, from cultural production to cultural economies, to an intensified economic
colonization of the cultural realm” (Ibid.). At the end of this process, the cultural realm loses its
authentic value and turns into an immense location where rich people go to spend money,
consume, and enjoy the consumed. Cameron and Coaffee argue that this movement is the revenge
of the capital from the proletariat “for the post war, welfarist settlement,” (2005, p.43) which
recaptured the city for the middle classes and the market. Evidently, the last wave brings the
cultural policies and policy makers into the process of gentrification.
These waves are not necessarily chronological; they are, however, interconnected. The case of
Tophane proves that all of them could be involved in the process of gentrification. Different
waves might be simultaneous, especially in those places, which are ‘late’ for the early waves of
gentrification. Gentrification should not be considered as a process that suddenly changes the
whole landscape of a neighborhood, since neighborhoods are not a single unity. Thus, these
waves should be considered as partial fragmented moves. Art galleries and artists are
continuously moving to the neighborhood especially after the establishment of the Istanbul
Modern Art Museum. The Tophane case starts with the institution of the museum, which then
triggers the gentrification process. The ‘aesthetic touch’ of the modern art in Tophane is only the
first step of gentrification according to the “guidelines” given by gentrification researchers. The
opening of the museum in a warehouse, and the urban transformation project of the city council
are other ingredients of the aesthetic gentrification. These bring the intervention of the state
apparatus in the process of gentrification. They also show the investment of private companies on
the artistic milieu. The attack by young residents, however, is the reaction of the “unwanted
elements” against gentrification, which is not deeply researched in the literature of gentrification.
The current literature on gentrification usually focuses on urban transformation adaptations from
a bird’s eye perspective. On the one hand, gentrification primarily problematizes the concrete
changes in space, while on the other hand; by doing this, it excludes the existence of people from
the gentrification literature. For example, Ley (1996) and Coaffee and Stuart (2005) claim to be
writing a case study concerning the movement of people from one place to another as a result of
gentrification, and investigate the role of the art world in this movement. Similarly, Deutsche and
Ryan (1984) research how and why art galleries move to an area (a working class neighborhood)
10
and how they contribute to the urban change. They provide significant insights for the urban
change through the artistic environment. However, their research remains limited to the structural
side of the phenomenon, without any notice on discourses and practices. Thus, their accounts fail
to capture the vibrancy and lived experiences of the actors that shape the environment.
Gentrification in Istanbul
Significantly later than many other cities in Europe and the USA, Istanbul, being one of the
biggest metropolises in the world, came under the strong effects of neoliberal globalization. Thus,
it is not surprising that Istanbul has witnessed gentrification, to some degree. Contrary to its
Western counterparts, however, Istanbul started to experience the process of gentrification
especially after the 1980s. The academic discussion on gentrification in Istanbul comes even later
than this. The first holistic accounts are Nilgün Ergün (2006) and Tolga Islam’s (2006) writings
about the issue.
Tolga Islam argues that gentrification in Istanbul is a three-phased process. The first wave
occurred in early 1980s around the Bosphorus, in neighborhoods such as Kuzguncuk,
Arnavutköy, and Ortaköy. This wave was mostly a housing rehabilitation and renovation
propelled by the local municipalities. The wave has been limited and relatively gentle because of
a law that prevents new constructions in the Bosphorus coast. According to Islam’s classification,
the second wave began in the 1990s near Beyoğlu, and more specifically in Cihangir,
Asmalımescit and Galata. This wave is mainly the result of the pedestrianization of Istiklal Street
that intensified the cultural, leisure, and commercial activities in the borough. Tolga Islam adds
that “gentrification proceeded very slowly and affected only a small track in Beyoğlu after almost
fifteen years since the first signs of gentrification had been seen” (2006, p.129). The final wave
occurred in the 2000s around the districts of Fener and Balat in the Golden Horn. These districts
faced the process with the initiation of the rehabilitation programme, which was funded by the
European Commission.
A common feature of such neighborhoods is the fact that they are all parts of the old city; as such,
they share an architectural, aesthetic style of either Greek/Turkish architecture or European
neoclassical architecture. Another commonality is that all these neighborhoods were populated by
Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Levantines (Latin people from the Orient) until the 1950s and 60s.
After the departure of the non-Muslims, most of the houses were bought or squatted by the
newcomers from Anatolia between 1960 and 1980.
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Similarly, Nilgün Ergün (2006) argues “up to the middle of 1950s the city centre of Istanbul had
been depopulated for various economical and political reasons (sic). Around the same time,
Istanbul was faced with an immense wave of emigration from the countryside as a result of liberal
economic policies. Those emigrants settled in the same depopulated areas in the city centre. After,
the inner city neighborhoods became dilapidated.” (Translation mine, 2006, p.51) She adds that
emigrants also imposed the lifestyle they experienced back home on their new neighborhoods,
which forced the old remaining residents to move from the neighborhood.
According to Tolga Islam, gentrification in Istanbul started after 1980, when a new middle class
emerging in Istanbul at the time rediscovered the old, dilapidated, nostalgic, historical
neighborhoods. He believes that the emergence of this class is the result of the adoption of liberal
and neoliberal economic politics. This new middle class has been described as bourgeoisbohemian (bobo), young, urban, professional businessmen or women. What put them in the
position of gentrifiers was their economical capital combined with their cultural accumulation and
will to enjoy entertainment from their living area. Islam adds that this class aims to obtain a
“cultural identity” by linking the nostalgia of the old city with their selves (Islam 2006).
This history and analysis of gentrification appears to be an effective and reasonable description as
far as the scale considered is a broad one encompassing Istanbul as a whole. However, I do not
believe that this theory would be entirely applicable to Tophane. Tophane is similar to the
neighborhoods, which the authors discuss in the book. It shares the same architectural style and
similar demographic history. It is telling that a part of the neighborhood is called Gavur
Mahallesi (Neighbourhood of Non-believers), which is a problematic term used for non-Muslims.
However, the gentrification process in Tophane and in the other neighborhoods of Istanbul, I
think, is not so similar. The first and most notable difference between Tophane and the other
neighborhoods (except from Asmalimescit) is that in Tophane the gentrifiers are mostly artists
and art galleries with low or limited economical capital, as opposed to the new middle class.
Secondly, we are faced with a violent resistance in Tophane, while in other neighborhoods the
means of nonviolent resistance are employed, such as the opening of neighborhood associations,
creating awareness about the neighborhood, etc. Thirdly and most importantly, most gentrified
people in the other neighborhoods have limited income. Instead, Tophane hosts people from all
economical strata.
Even if, I found some of the analyses in Islam’s book outdated and uncorrect, (at one point, he
argues that gentification in Cihangir started with the move of an artist/academician couple to the
neighborhood) one of the issues that he underlines is tremendously crucial to understand the level
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of gentrification in Istanbul. He offers a literature review on gentrification in New York and
England, and argues that the kind of total gentrification, which can be spotted in the
neighborhoods of New York, has not occurred in Istanbul. He thinks that, although one can talk
about a change in the landscape and the inhabitants of neighborhoods such as Kuzguncuk, Balat,
and Cihangir, it is hard to say that these neighborhoods have completely changed. Therefore, he
argues, gentrification in Istanbul stays at the micro level. This means that gentrification in
Istanbul occurs with small portions like renovation of buildings or redecoration of inner spaces
with a ruined outer facade. Therefore, this kind of gentrification does not lead to a complete
change in the landscape of the neighborhoods.
Beyond Gentrification
Because of all these features and of this genealogy, before going to the field and to some extent
even as I write these lines, Tophane seemed/seems like a perfect example to illustrate aesthetic
gentrification. During my stay there, the field, my research, my discussions with informants and
interviewees, my conversations with people in the neighborhood people and the art world, my
flâneur-like walks in the area, have highlighted the phenomenon of the artistic gentrification in
Tophane. And yet, after six months on the field, I figured out that if I were to simply explain the
attack on that night of September 21st, 2010 through the notion of gentrification, I would be
leaving several other crucial issues outside of my account. I would explain this issue away.
Of course, I could still write my paper around the issue of gentrification. And that would add to
the body of work on aesthetic gentrification that Deutsche and Ryan initiated. Additionally, it
would also contribute to the literature of gentrification in Istanbul, which is surprisingly limited,
and would bring a Westernized-non-Western city into the literature, which is rarely researched in
studies of gentrification.
However, such an account would inevitably oversimplify the situation that I encountered in
Tophane. Because of this broad, large-scale analysis, which characterizes genrification
scholarship, this body of literature often overlooks the lived dynamics of places like Tophane,
offering simple, straightforward causal mechanisms that divide the residents in victims and
perpetrators. At first glance, following this approach, the perpetrators of aesthetic gentrification in
Tophane are coming from the art world, leaving the inhabitants impoverished the role of victims.
If we take the attack that occurred on September 21, 2010 into consideration, though, the roles are
reversed. The perpetrator, the art world, becomes the victim and the neighborhood people the
perpetrator. Emerging from normative questions about how to deal with gentrification and with
13
concerns (not unknown to anthropologists) about taking the side of subalterns and voicing their
positions, studies of gentrification are often polarized along the lines of ethical sides in the
struggle for power. This, not only leads to dichotomized interpretations of the context of
gentrification, but it also reproduce and reinforce normative about social and political struggles
that are already present in official discourses. Besides effectively erasing the complexities of the
realities of Tophane then, such an approach also does not contribute to rethinking the sociopolitical relations at play where gentrification takes place. The problem with framing this research
in continuity with gentrification studies, thus, is not only about its hinderance to a truthful
description, but also, more pragmatically, about improving our conceptual toolbox by staying
closer to daily practices and discourses.
The narratives, stories, situations and subjectivities of Tophane are messy and complicated. The
complexity of the neighbourhood is striking and complicates my job to write a paper that
develops holistically upon a single focus. While I was conducting my fieldwork, one of my old
professors tried to encourage me: “Nobody knows what exactly happened in Tophane. Nobody
knows it because there is no straightforward answer. It is messy.” At this very point, John Law’s
suggestion of method assemblage emerges as particularly helpful not only in providing a better
description of what is going on in Tophane, but also in using this to further our understandings of
social dynamics in an event like the September 2010 attack.
Law’s understanding of social reality derives from actor-network theory, which he, himself, is
one of the pioneers. ANT is an approach to social theory and research, known with its forceful
critiques to the conventional social sciences. Although, Bruno Latour and Mechel Callon
primarily know it with the controversial integration of the agency of non-humans into the social
sciences literature, it allows depicting the relationships between the materials and between
semiotics. In another way of saying, ANT aims to show relationships between the immense
network of humans, things and meanings “out-there.” Latour calls ANT “a theory of space or
fluids circulating in a non-modern situation,” which seeks to define the world with its own
dimensions of “’out there’ nature, ‘in there’ sociology, [and] ‘down there’ politics” (Latour, 1999,
Pp.20-21).
Law says that “the world is largely messy,” (2004) by which he means both the physical and the
symbolical mess. The streets are a mess, the air is a mess, the minds are a mess, and the bodies
are a mess. Nothing is entirely pure, clean, determinate, neither white nor black. Therefore, he
argues, “we cannot expect single answers.” Then, he adds, “[i]f the world is complex and messy,
then at least some of the time we are going to have to give up on the simplicities” (2004: 2). Since
14
mess, as Law would argue, is the allegory of the realities out-there, repressing the mess and
reducing it into clarity fundamentally distorts the realities in order to reach coherence and
comprehensiveness.
Therefore, we need to go beyond “textbooks and the lecture hall, or practice in ethnography,
survey research, geographical field trips, or at the laboratory benches” (2004, p.144), by adding
“[e]nactment, multiplicity, fluidity, allegory, resonance, and enchantment” (2004, p.154) into our
method for the sake of integrating the realities with the social sciences. Doing this will allow the
researcher/writer to craft the multiplicities, the mess out-there, and to decode the practices and
discourses without distorting the reality.
Following the epistemological and ontological concerns above, I have to give up the idea
providing a monocausal account of the attack of the residents of the neighborhood to the art
galleries in Tophane on September 21, 2010 –an ‘it was all because of gentrification’ kind of
explanation-- and chart, instead, the complexity of the situations, thoughts, narrations that have
been developed around it. Rather than developing the analytical “top-down” discussion from
themes such as gentrification, resistance, violence, letting the theoretical concerns shape my field,
I–in a classical anthropological move—work “bottom-up” starting from the multiple versions of
social change in Tophane and the different stories of my informants. Not every story touches
upon all of the issues that literature makes central, but they are all situated in Tophane and all
bring the attack into the discussion at some point. This approach helps me unpack the confusion
and complexity of the site, allow Tophane ‘to tell its own story.’ Also, it allow me to offer an
analytical discussion over the themes, without starting from them a priori, but rather tinkering
with them, showing the development of the extended case study without forcing the realities of
the neighborhood into simple ready-made categories, but using the case to shift such categories.
Doing justice to the messiness of social change in Tophane does not mean that I will leave
gentrification aside and concentrate only to the issue of mess. I keep gentrification processes in
sight as my story unfolds, but force myself to understand gentrification in its inextricable
entanglement with other issues. Eventually, I show how gentrification literature is extremely
straightforward in its analysis of social change in neighborhoods such as Tophane. Thus, the
causal relationships that this literature creates fail to make a holistic narration and analysis of the
field. That situation lead to the formation of different and alternative modernities and realities that
co-exist in the same time and space. Thus, expecting a single account to shed light on Tophane
will overlook other important aspects that do have an impact on gentrification. This, of course, is
not to argue that gentrification literature is useless. My argument is simply that gentrification
15
theories, from their bird eye’s perspective, eliminate too many of the concerns that motivate
people to come into (violent) action.
How can one talk about a neighborhood in a paper? How you could open up these one-two-three
dimensions of visual space? Or, better how to take the reader for a stroll on the streets of
Tophane? Maybe, a paper can, also, be used as a neighborhood, a site where one is a wanderer,
trying to discover the place, or wanting to see the façade of buildings, but hearing the
conversation behind the walls. In the neighborhood everything gets mixed, complicated,
sophisticated; therefore every chapter, every subtitle of this paper offers a new path to walk in
Tophane. While doing this you will realize it is not just asphalt, we are walking on, it is not just
cement and bricks that buildings are made of, and it is not just words that people are speaking.
“The attack was spontaneous…”
Black spent the night of September 21, 2010 in jail, because he was suspected of having
participated in the attacks. He thinks that the reason behind this was his commitment to the
neighborhood. He was born, raised and spent all his life in the neighborhood. He made his first
steps on the streets of the Tophane. He got married and had children in the neighborhood. He
started his career in journalism in this neighborhood. His online newspaper is about it. Now,
“they” were blaming him for loving too much his neighborhood.
On the evening of September 21, he left his office, situated in one of the side streets of
Bogazkesen Street, around half past seven. He first strolled in the park next to his office. This
park, he thought, used to be a gathering place for alcoholics and junkies only a few years ago.
Now, children play football and hide and seek there. He continued to walk on his left towards the
lower side of Bogazkesen Street. He stopped in the corner of the street to greet some elderly
people who were washing themselves for the evening prayer in Karabas Mosque.
-
As-salamu Alaykum.
-
Ve alaykum as-salam.
-
Let Allah accept your prayers.
-
Insha’Allah!
-
…
-
Won’t you pray today?
-
I’m going to the galleries up there. They are supposed to organize an opening. Someone should
keep an eye on them. We can’t leave the neighborhood untended.
-
It is very crowded up there; there are maybe one thousand people.
16
-
They think this neighborhood is theirs. I better check the scene. Eyv’Allah.
He loves this neighborhood the way it is. “Now there is pressure towards the neighborhood, a
pressure for changing the lifestyle of Tophane. Tophane has always been a place where people
with different backgrounds could meet. However, now art galleries open, they establish gay
hostels, drink in the street, foreign people buy property from the neighborhood. We’re against
this.”
He turned the corner of Bogazkesen Street with a gesture of abhorrence on his face. He took out
his camera to take some pictures for the next day’s online newspaper while thinking about a
possible headline. After a few pictures, he entered the gallery on the lower side of the Street.
“What is the meaning of this art? A crocked bust of Ataturk on the floor!” He left the gallery and
stepped towards the historical coffeehouse of the neighborhood, twenty meters away from the
gallery.
“The attack was spontaneous… It wasn’t organized… Somebody in the art gallery crowd insulted
a woman from the neighborhood while she was passing in front of one of the galleries… This
provoked people. I mean the neighborhood was already fed up with these people. People even
sent complain notices to the city hall. The locals that I know would never complain; they simply
assault.”
Yet, he does not give an account about the attack. He was not there during the incident. Police is
blaming him for nothing. He did not attack. He did nothing. Only, he loved and still loves his
neighborhood very much.
Although he loves his neighborhood as it is, he believes that it will change: “Tophane will
change. It is inevitable. It can never be the old Tophane anymore. Tophaneli are not against
change in general. They are against this type of change. The things that they call art are not
addressing me. I am not an enemy of art. I just don’t understand this art. I am not an enemy of
someone unless people impose something on me.”
Being Tophaneli
Black’s grandfather moved to Tophane from Siirt in the 1930s. They had chosen Tophane
because his wife and himself already had some relatives living there. Black does not know when
those relatives moved there, but he knows that they were working as carriers, blacksmiths or
carpenters. He adds: “Our people learned these jobs mostly from Greek or Armenian masters; in
fact, they were always good in hand crafts.” He remembers one Greek neighbor, an old woman,
in his childhood, whose house he used to visit occasionally: “I was feeling more comfortable in
17
her place. I could play whatever I liked, I could be naughty. She would never get angry at me. She
was extremely polite. I was sometimes asking her: ‘where are your children?’ She never replied
clearly. They probably were distant. Who would not call his mother? This home was a little place
in the big world.” However, Black does not remember what has happened to her.
His depiction of it fits in the standards of the cliché: “Tophane has two faces; one is looking
towards the West, while the other towards the East. It is an old, established place. Tophane is like
a village in the middle of a big city, where everybody knows each other. It is a place where
kinship, friendship, and intimacy are very strong. It is safe for the people who live there, but
violent towards the outsiders.”
He believes that the identity of Tophaneli is superior to the other ethnic identities in the
neighborhood: “Here, being Arab, Kurdish, Turkish, Circassian, Laz [Ethnic identities] is not that
important. What matters is being Tophaneli [Turkish: member of Tophane]. All these people react
cooperatively when there is a threat towards Tophane. It’s neither political, nor militant.
However, you have to be familiar with the local culture. Otherwise, the culture beats you. There
are newcomers from our fathers’ villages, from Siirt and Bitlis. We call them ‘the last train.’
There is the issue of integration. They are not fitting well in Tophane. Once you come to Tophane
you’re not an Arab or a Kurd anymore. You are Tophaneli. You have to be part of it. It is the
same with other newcomers. A few years ago, they opened a gay hostel in the upper part of the
neighborhood. I visited the place as a journalist and asked them ‘Why did you chose to open this
kind of place in Tophane?’ Very arrogantly, he answered with his weird Turkish: ‘This is an old
Genoese neighborhood.’ That shows the occupier mentality. They are bringing all kind of weird
people here. They are showing immoral and corrupted paintings to the kids of the neighborhood,
they are trying to occupy our place. People say that Tophane puts pressure on the people.
However, it’s the opposite; there is pressure towards the neighborhood.”
Fragmented Continuum of Tradition
Black is clearly uncomfortable with the moving-in of people who, in his opinion, fail to adopt to
the living ‘codes’ of Tophane. These codes are neither written, nor spelled out loudly. That makes
them unclear, dependent on time and conditions, and arbitrary. Black conceptualizes these codes
as a traditional ‘heritage’. For him, the ‘tradition’ of the neighborhood has been built upon the
values that developed there over the centuries. These values consist of a modest religiosity
(mainly deriving from the values of Islam), conservatism, manhood, and even violence, if
necessary. The so-called continuum of these ‘traditional’ values gives him the right to claim
18
‘ownership’ over the neighborhood space. He believes that he and the ones who think and behave
like him are the rightful owners of Tophane. This ownership does not necessarily connote the
physical ownership over space. Even less so the legal one. It is symbolical. When, Black says
“This is my neighborhood,” he means that his self, his identity and his person are intimately
connected withthe physical neighborhood space, and ‘thus’ owns the right to live in this particular
space.
This claim derives from beliefs and values. It is temporary because as much as Beyoğlu and
Istanbul more generally, or even more so, Tophane never had a continuous ‘traditional’ history.
Instead, the history and, thus, the ‘tradition’ of Istanbul in general (and this is particularly true of
the old neighborhoods like Tophane), are fragmented. Therefore, talking about a continuum in the
tradition is hardly possible (Erzen, 2011). That emerges from Black’s account as well. Her family
moved to Tophane in the 1930s, when most of the inhabitants were still Istanbulite Greeks and
Armenians. These old residents are no longer there, today. The newcomers in the 1930s and
1940s learned jobs and skills from Greeks and Armenians, and Black sees this as a continuity,
which means that his family, and families with a similar history, ‘inherited’ the tradition of
Tophane. Paradoxically, here, he excludes Greeks and Armenians from his description of the
typical Tophaneli. His categorization of Tophaneli (Arabs, Kurds, Turks, etc.) does not include
non-Muslims into the neighborhood. He is very well aware that this neighborhood was, once,
mainly inhabited by non-Muslims, but the situation is different now. Today, Black’s image of the
Tophaneli is the ‘owner’ of the neighborhood. That allows Black to draw a symbolic boundary
between people “like him” and “the others”.
Newcomers and ‘Oldcomers’
In light of this, what Black calls ‘tradition’ is the opinion of a group of people who claim to be the
most rooted in the neighborhood. This genealogy he creates, and its continuity with an imagined
past, then allows for the claim of rightful ownership. Black’s claims express the right he feels he
has over that space, and this in turn convinces him that newcomers should conform to the rules
and codes of Tophane (that are, in fact, a creation of the ‘oldcomers’). This discourse and the
practices that revolve around it is grounded in a specific idea of intimate connections with space,
and of origins and authenticity. It resonates with the classical notions of being established and
being an outsider in a city-space as Norbert Elias and John Scotson (1965) frame them. Although
Elias’ and Scotson’s argument is nowadays quite normative and didactic, their conceptualization
of “established” residents and “newcomers” is worth mentioning since it echoes the native
distinction that Black draws between ‘original’ Tophaneli and ‘undesirable’ newcomers.
19
They argue that what is generally considered an individual opinion of a social space (in this case,
Black’s opinion) is “the variation of standard beliefs and attitudes current in [the] neighborhood
[space]” (1965, p.5). Therefore, these opinions are “formed part and parcel of common beliefs
and attitudes maintained by various forms of social pressure and social control” (ibid.). Therefore,
this space organizes common beliefs that resist and react, if necessary, to other opinions that
oppose it. He called this concept ‘Neighborhood Pressure’ (Mahalle Baskısı). This process others
those who do not conform to the beliefs and values of the neighborhood, or expects “newcomers
to adapt themselves to [the neighborhood] own norms and beliefs” (1965, p.17).
In the case of Black, he, on ‘behalf’ of the neighborhood, expects the newcomers to adapt their
way of living to the ‘standards’ of the neighborhood. When the adaptation fails, as in the case of
the “last trains”, or when the newcomers refuse to adapt, as in the case of art gallery owners, the
ones who claim ownership over the space (or oldcomers, to put it differently) react in many ways.
In the case of the “last trains,” oldcomers exclude them from the imagined community of those
belonging to Tophane: for oldcomers, the “last trains” do not ‘belong’ to the neighborhood. In the
case of art galleries, the oldcomers prefer a more violent method or, as Black would put it, they
“simply assault.”
However, ‘belonging’ to the neighborhood is also problematic. Elias and Scotson believe that
feelings of belonging have an important temporal aspect: they derive from a life-long stay in the
neighborhood. This, they suggest, is “a great pride,” which create a sense of ‘ownership’ over the
space (1965, p.28). Black’s pride for the space, in my opinion, comes from this idea. Black’s
testimony also clearly show that the ‘original’ inhabitants of the neighborhood today were once
newcomers themselves. They both admit that Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Romani people
inhabited the neighborhood. The existence of Arabs, Kurds, and Turks, however, is also not that
recent. Port records show that these populations have established in the neighborhood over a
century ago. Black, on the other hand, claims that his family moved from Siirt to Tophane in the
1930s. Indeed, the 1950s and 1960s also saw migrants moving to the neighborhood from Siirt and
Bitlis (Odman, 2011). All in all, today’s inhabitants of Tophane were once “newcomers.” In this
situation, it becomes clear, the norms and codes derived from ‘tradition,’ the idea of ‘belonging’
to the neighborhood, the claims of the right over space, and the distinction between old or new
residents in the neighborhood, all become blurry.
This does not mean that Black feels as a newcomer in Tophane. On the contrary, in his view, he,
and those like him, are the ones who are the ‘true’ Tophaneli. This conceptualization leads Black
to draw a symbolic line between ‘those like him’ and the ‘others.’ As a result of this
20
differentiation, Black thinks that Tophaneli use violence as a tool to ‘protect’ Tophane from those
who want to challenge the ‘values’ of Tophane or who try to harm the neighborhood.
One bottle of beer
“One of the beer bottles exploded next to my right foot, and another passed whistling next to my
ear. I kept running and running without looking back. I saw a dark street on my right and entered
suddenly without even thinking. I was lucky… They preferred to follow the main street.”
Crocus was attending the joint opening of the art galleries in Tophane, in the evening of
September 21, 2010. Originally, she was not planning to go there. She had been strolling with a
friend of hers, a young art degree graduate, in Istiklal Street. Since it was rush hour, the street was
extremely crowded. Out of the blue, her friend told her about the joint opening in Tophane. Being
fed up with the bustle of people in Istiklal, Crocus agreed to join her friend: it was pointless to
stroll in such a huge crowd.
They took a street descending from Galatasaray Square. Crocus remembers this street and the
area over the last four decades. For a long time, Yeni Carsi Street has been a mess. You could buy
any kind of drugs on the dark corners of the street. Homeless people were sleeping in the
entrances of the apartments. There was not a single fancy place around, only one or two
coffeehouses, a beverage shop, a trashy rock bar, one antique book seller and that was all. Now,
Yeni Carsi hosts four recently built fancy cafes, a few design boutiques, one of which sells
vintage, a comic book shop, a parking garage, a theatre, a cultural centre, and much more. Even
the trashy rock bar turned into a fancy bar that plays old hits from the 1970s and 1980s.
Passing by all these places, they continued to walk towards Bogazkesen Street (literally meaning
Throat Cutter street, a trace of the twilight character of the area). They passed next to the taxi
stand situated in the high end of the street. Despite having walked thousands of times there,
Crocus noticed that the area was unusually crowded, and not with the its usual crowd of people
visiting the old Tomtom Mosque, eating there in the hash houses, hanging around the historical
coffeehouse seeking for a small chitchat with an acquaintance.
“There was something odd in the air, that night. I was there by chance. I was not expecting to face
a big crowd situated in front of three galleries in the street. I felt as if everybody whom I knew
from different cultural circles had come together to celebrate something or to show their
solidarity. People were looking at the art works remarkably rapidly, then went outside to benefit
from the nice end-of-summer weather with their cigarettes and drinks…”
21
They did not spend much time in front of the first two galleries. They greeted some of their
acquaintances who were drinking and chatting on the sidewalk of the first gallery. They cast an
eye over the second gallery, and then continued downhill towards the lower end of the street.
“We did as others were doing, we took a quick look at the exhibition—to be honest, it was
daring—and then we went to the brewery shop next to the gallery, bought a couple of beers and
started to drink it on the street.”
Crocus does not remember what they were chatting about, but they were on the sidewalk of
Bogazkesen Street with some acquaintances and friends with drinks in their hands. Except from
the art gallery visitors, the sidewalk was also hosting other people who were trying to get home,
go to the grocery shop or anywhere else, yet having trouble to pass because of the crowd. The coowner of the art gallery was trying to leave free space for the passersby; yet, the visitors were not
listening or simply did not care.
“I don’t remember what we were talking about exactly. I guess it was not that important. In fact, I
was paying attention to the people passing by, especially to their angry faces. They were clearly
not happy about the situation and the joint opening. Suddenly, I heard a noise coming from the
lower side of the Bogazkesen Street. At first, I did not understand the reason. I thought some
people from the neighborhood were fighting, which did and still does happen all the time in
Tophane. When I saw a bunch of men coming towards us with batons, knives, and other stuff in
their hands, I realized that it was not a small fight, but an assault and I was one of the potential
targets. They turned in the corner where Karabas Mosque meets with Bogazkesen and they started
to climb the street, yelling “Allah, Allah!” as if they were the janissaries and we were enemy
soldiers. Although, they seemed like agreeing on the name of Allah and the common enemy,
some of them were yelling towards us “Go inside!” meaning inside the art galleries, while others
were shouting “Go away!” Even if they were not very clear about what they wanted from us, they
seemed quite sure, in both cases, that they wanted to beat us good. I was thinking to run away, yet
it seemed like my legs were acting as if they did not hear the command.
Suddenly, a man appeared and told us to go into the small storage in the car wash shop next to the
art gallery. We did not have any other choice. Without judging thoroughly, we went in together
with a few other people. He told us, in a strict voice, to be quiet. He did not seem friendly, as
well. I could hear screams, shouting, the sound of shimmering glasses, beatings, and fast
footsteps. Yet, we were waiting there in the dark without knowing what would happen. I was very
nervous. I remember that for one second I thought: ‘That’s it! We are all going to die here.”
22
Then, the guy who hid them in the storage opened the door and told them to go out. The first
thing they saw was the broken window of the gallery outside which they had been drinking.
Crocus started to run towards the higher side of the street while looking at the other galleries and
the street in general the beer bottles that were coming towards her miraculously did not hurt her,
entered a random street on her right and luckily nobody followed her. In our interview she told
me: “I had to think about what my mother had told me about the pogroms in the 1950s”.
People Forget, Cities Never Do
Crocus was born in the building where she still lives with her husband, which is situated on
Kumbaraci Street, crossing Tophane from Istiklal Street towards the Bosphorus. In fact, the
history of the building in which Crocus was born and the story of Kumbaraci Street give a perfect
sense of the socio-historical context of Tophane in particular, but also of Beyoglu, Istanbul, and
even Turkey as a whole, to some degree.
Crocus’ parents bought this building from a Istanbulite Greek doctor in the late 1950s. Before
that, they were living in another part of Istiklal Street, known as Tepebasi quarter. For Crocus’
parents and grandparents, she says, Tepebasi, and more generally Beyoglu were the
concretization of the nostalgia of authentic Istanbul, where the real Istanbulites (a mixed
community of non-Muslims, mainly Greeks but also Jews and Armenians) live together with
(mainly Westernized) Turkish people. However, this dream ended with the pogroms of
September 6-7, 1955, when most of the houses and workplaces of non-Muslims were attacked
and looted.
Crocus was born in a time during which Istanbul was about to experience a wave of great
immigration from Anatolia, which caused huge changes in its spatial and demographic
characteristics: “I went to a primary school on the other side of Istiklal Street. The children over
there were really poor. I was seen as a real rich over there. Why? Because I was the only one who
was wearing proper shoes in my classroom. But when I was transferred to the private high school
in our street, I suddenly became the poorest.” “When I was going to school, I was crossing
drunkards passing out on the streets, pimps and prostitutes on their way home. It was a dangerous
neighborhood, but only in the night. The day and night crowds were completely different. In the
day time you could see students, businessmen, people coming to shop. In the night, it would
become completely different, with prostitution, gambling, and drug trafficking.”
She prefers to differentiate the part of the neighborhood in which she lives from Tophane:
“Tophane, for me, was mainly a Romani people neighborhood. It was like a small ghetto. Now, of
23
course, it’s like a South Eastern Anatolian village, with covered women and dangerous men. A lot
of Arabs and Kurds live there now, and their lives are organized around religious sects. When I
was a child, we were differentiating ourselves from the ones that lived in the bottom part of
Tophane. Here was the Gavur Mahallesi (Unbelievers Neighborhood (sic)). We were the upper
neighborhood; they were the bottom [a geographical differentiation rather than class distinction].
If you want to buy drugs, you have to go to this part, if you want to gamble, go there… People
forget easily, but the city never forgets its own history. The underground culture always stands.
[Here she means that the continuity of the life style of the city, the underground drug selling
culture continues despite the fact that the old population replaces with the new ones.] Now, they
say that there is no more drug selling in Tophane. Yes, it is harder to find drugs; but you can still
find it. Before, it was the Romani people who were selling drugs, now it’s the Arabs.”
September 6th-7th, 1955
The story Crocus told me, unfolds in two directions. She personally experienced the first one
quite recently, while the second one was told to her by her parents and grant-parents. The
pogroms of 6-7 September 1955 had a significant impact on the demographics of Istanbul, and
especially the borough of Beyoğlu. This, as we saw earlier, at the time was home to most of
Istanbul’s non-Muslims. Crocus’ family was not directly targeted during the pogroms, and was
not a victim of the violence, the killings and the expulsions that took place in those two days.
Nevertheless, they were, like many others and like the city as a whole, deeply affected by them.
Eventually, in the aftermath of the events, they moved to Kumbaraci Street, thus doing their part
in the change of the neighborhood and its ethnic mix.
The official story of the events of those days is the following: on the night of September 6, 1955,
the pro-government newspaper Istanbul Ekspress reported that the house in which Kemal Ataturk
was born, in Thessaloniki, was bombed by Greek nationalists. Upon hearing the news, an angry
mob quickly gathered in Taksim square and around the city, and started shouting “Cyprus is
Turkish! It will remain Turkish!” and similar nationalist slogans. Shortly after that, violent riots
spread throughout Istanbul, mainly targeting the local Greek population (the so called Rums), but
also other non-Muslim communities, such as Jews and Armenians. Any non-Muslim property that
the rioters could reach—shops, houses, churches, synagogues, and cemeteries—was looted,
several people were wounded, killed and/or raped. (Kuyucu, 2005; Vryonis, 2005; Bali, 2010)
According to many testimonies, the majority of the attackers seemed Anatolian, recognizable by
their carik and salvar, (traditional clothes, generally used by people living in the rural parts of
Turkey.) but also many ‘local’ people were involved in the attacks. (Bali, 2010)
24
Tepebasi was one of the main centers of the pogroms. Crocus’ grandparents witnessed with their
own eyes the violent lootings against their neighbors. For this reason, she told me, her
grandmother said to her husband: “I don’t want to share the same street with people who grow
hatred in their heart.” Thus, they decided to move from Tepebasi to Kumbaraci Street. Crocus
says “they moved here because they were very scared of the attacks as well. Also, this street was
also considered to be multicultural, to some degree.” Ironically, they bought the building where
Crocus still lives from an old Istanbulite Greek doctor. Crocus believes the doctor did not want to
sell the place where he spent all his life, but it was his children that pressured him to move to
Athens, after the pogrom.
The September pogroms, then, are seen by many as the final step of a process that erased
thousands of years of Greek-Muslim coexistence in Istanbul and reduced the presence of other
non-Muslims in Istanbul’s social fabric. In the following years, many Greek Istanbulites moved to
Greece, thus gradually decreasing the city’s Greek population from approximately 70,000 before
the pogroms to somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 today (Dundar, 2000). This kind of riots, as
in the case of 1955 pogroms, might be seen as the result of the rapid transformation in the urban
settings that undergo deep and substantial demographic and socio-economical changes (Tambiah,
1996, p.17; Kuyucu, 2005). The mob has been oftentimes characterized as uncontrolled, irrational
and unconscious (LeBon, 1952). On the contrary McPhail arues that mobs acts very rationally to
accomplish or prevent some sort of social change (McPhail, 1991, p.22). Here, I think, it is more
productive to consider mob behavior as a different kind of logic, one that responds to a different
notion of rationality, but that does nonetheless bring forward change and transformation in
straightforward and effective ways, ways that are, at least a posteriori, very logical and even
rational.
Crocus brought the 1955 pogrom in her account because the art gallery attack in Tophane triggers
memories of earlier, similar events (not solely the pogrom, but also many other small attacks that
happened in Tophane in recent years). Connecting these diverse traumatic events brings about
another interpretive framework to understand the art gallery attacks. This is Crocus’ reading of
the attacks. Crocus does not necessarily believe that the events at the art galleries are a protest
against or a sign of resistance to gentrification. This might be the main reason why, in her story,
she connects the new attack to the 1955 pogroms. She does not openly argue that the new attack
has inherited the role of the old one. The story she tells suggests that she considers such violence
occuring time and time again in Tophane during the last few decades is an attempt to clarify and
set symbolic boundaries between the different groups sharing the same neighborhood.
25
Rosebud
On the morning of September 22, 2010, Rosebud was fearful and nervous. She had to go back to
the neighborhood, the street, the building where she had just experienced a terrible moment. She
put her most modest clothes on, she checked herself one more time in the mirror, put her shoes
on, took a final look at the apartment, and stepped outside. Her gallery, the gallery that had been
attacked the night before, was within walking distance from her home. She always enjoyed
looking around while she was going to work. She liked this part of the city.
“I first moved my gallery to Çukurcuma, more precisely on Faik Paşa Street, at the edge of
Tophane. When, I first came there, there were junkies (tinerci), thieves and dangerous men all
around the street. The neighborhood was scary in the night. But you knew that there were
architects and artists living in the buildings. So, the inside of the apartments and the street were
completely different from each other. The space inside was beautifully arranged, without
disturbing the soul of the historical space. It was very nice to be part of this historical structure,
this community. This part of the city has a character, a character that attracts people like me. It’s
hard to describe. It’s like the town is a living organism and you get along with it.”
However, on this morning, she was not in the mood of looking around. When she turned on
Boğazkesen Street, she felt a paranoid atmosphere that struck her. She was constantly looking
over her shoulder, as if someone was following her. It was probably the first time that she did not
feel comfortable on her way to her gallery. When she passed next to the car washing center, she
saw the broken windows of her friend’s gallery. She didn’t want to spend too much time in front
of the gallery. She didn’t want to attract too much attention. Attract attention? Why? She was
clearly becoming paranoid. Then, she passed in front of the kokoreç (roasted sheep intestines)
seller, and she saw the door of her own gallery. That’s when all the memories of the last night
came back.
“There is not much to say. People are telling all the same stories. You have probably also heard it
hundreds of time. We were organizing this Tophane Art Walk joint opening for the opening of the
2010-2011 art season. I was in the gallery on the third floor. First I heard some shouting coming
from down the street. As you can see, there are no windows here. So, I ran into the office to see
what was going on. At the same moment, my phone rang. I answered. It was my friend. She was
crying. I could not understand what she was saying. Then, my assistant told me that there were
some people attacking the galleries on the lower part of the street. I had to make a decision. So, I
told her to close the rolling shutters at the entrance of the building. The attackers then came in
26
front of the building. When they realized they could not enter, they started to throw stones and
other objects to the main door. They broke the windows. Then they moved away, towards the
upper part of the street. Later, I found out that they had attacked other art galleries. Then, I called
my friend back. She was still crying. I told her to come here and bring as much people as she
could. When people came we were around one-hundred, one-hundred fifty people in this little
space. People were fainting, crying, and vomiting. Meanwhile, I was calling the police. Yet, they
came quite late, almost after all the attackers had ran away. Even the journalists were here before
the police. I felt like the police knew it would happen. Under their protection, we started to
evacuate the building. I, with other gallery owners and people who had been attacked, went to the
police station to make an official lodgment. I guess that was all. The night was tremendously
chaotic. I do not or do not want to remember every single detail.”
From London to Tophane
Rosebud was born and raised in London, UK. She spent almost all her youth and student years
(she studied Media Arts and Managerial Sciences) there. Then she worked in a cultural
organization as the assistant manager for a couple of years. She was always interested in
photography as art, mainly because her father was the owner of a large photographic laboratory.
She has always been familiar with photographing and printing techniques. Nine years before the
attacks, she decided to move to Turkey. Together with her father they decided to adapt their
photographic laboratory to the needs of new technologies. That’s how their gallery was
established seven years ago.
She first had an art gallery and studio in Çukurcuma, five hundred meters away from her current
place. She enjoyed being there. She believes Çukurcuma has undergone a tremendous change.
When they first moved there, it was a twilight area. Now, she says, “The street has changed, the
people have changed, the buildings have changed. Now, it’s much cleaner in every sense.” They
moved to Tophane three years ago. She says it was not her first choice to move there, but they
were in a hurry. Rents in Tophane were remarkably cheap and Boğazkesen Street is one of the
main axes that connect Istiklal Street to the Istanbul Modern Art Museum.
“Çukurcuma has changed tremendously, but Tophane has not. I do not think it will ever change
either. This is also a highly characteristic neighborhood, like Çukurcuma. Yet, people in Tophane
are different. They do not want to change. Tophane has not changed at all. It should come from
inside. I do not want to smell kokoreç every day, I do not want to pass next to the carwashing
place. Tophane is not changing; it will never change. I have grown apart from the neighborhood
27
now. I don’t like the dirt on the streets, it smells, people spit on the streets. They throw meat and
bones on the streets. What is that? For the dogs. Ok, dogs should be fed. But, why are you
throwing meat in the middle of the sidewalk? Tophane does not change. They are not clean. I am
ashamed to bring my guests here. The cleanness should come from one’s inside. They don’t want
to be clean. That is why I want to move out from here.”
She was not feeling that negative when she first moved to the neighborhood. There were not
many art galleries there. Those that had been established in Tophane were all young galleries,
which decided to initiate an art walk session, aiming at making their name known.
“It was the opening of the 2009 art season. None of the galleries gathered in the same area in
Turkey had ever done something like Tophane Art Walk. We were excited to be initiating such
collaboration. We used Tophane Art Walk as a marketing tool to make the galleries known in
Tophane and beyond. Now, I think this is the reason why we have been attacked. We made the
neighborhood known. We put Tophane on the map. We created awareness. We introduced
Tophane to the bigger art scene. That was the biggest of all problems. It is related to the
neighborhood’s past. We know how people are here. There is a history of drug dealing,
alcoholism, illegal gambling, and prostitution in this neighborhood. Maybe, this has changed with
the presence of Justice and Development Party [the political party which in the government in
Turkey since 2002]. Yet, at the end, this is not the savoriest neighborhood in Turkey. The people
who go to the mosques today are the same people who sold drugs yesterday. By our initiative, the
neighborhood became known, and it disturbed some people.”
In her account, Rosebud highlights that having an art gallery in Tophane brings tension in the
area. On a large scale, she considers both the attack and the process of gentrification as an
expression of a cultural clash. She argues that the art galleries have been attacked because they
made the neighborhood “visible” as it is, with all its qualities and flaws. Tophane was and is (to
some degree) a twilight area reminiscent of Deutche and Ryan (1984) depiction of Lower East
Side; the existence of art galleries in the neighborhood brought Tophane in the sight of a bigger
public. However, some people from the neighborhood (she does not make who are those people
explicit) that is why the galleries attracted the attention of some neo-conservative people (as she
calls them) who used to be drug dealers, pimps, gamblers, etc. Since these old ‘sinners’ started to
enjoy the wisdom of savory in recent years, they did not want to be reminded of their ‘flaws’ in
the past. As a result, she believes that the very cultural differences in Tophane between the art
gallery owners and the neighborhood residents led to the attack.
28
Rosebud does not see gentrification as the main reason for the attack. However, in her account,
she constantly underlines the effects and results of gentrification in Tophane and in the periphery,
by explaining how different streets of the neighborhood have been embellished, like the upper
parts of the neighborhood such as Faikpaşa Street. This was a twilight area, where people were
afraid to walk, not only in the night but also during the day. Now, she believes that this has
changed. According to her testimony, people like artists, architects, admen and the like caused
this change. Her understanding of the situation resonates with a classical Bourdieuan reading, in
which it is cultural capital that brings forward change.
Rosebud moved from Çukurcuma to Tophane because her landlord in Çukurcuma wanted her out.
She states that the building where she used to have her gallery now hosts a big cultural institution
financed by one of Turkey’s biggest banks. Clearly, she loved to have an office in Çukurcuma,
and she does not like Tophane at all. The reason behind this appears to lie in the fact that the first
one is, in her opinion, gentrified (she speaks of people having changed), while the latter has not
(and she claims that Tophaneli do not want to change). From her testimony, it is also obvious that
she supports gentrification, because it ‘cleans’ the dust and dirt away from the neighborhood. If
we want to follow Coaffee and Stuart’s argument in “the third wave of gentrification”, Rosebud
fits in the category of the pioneers of gentrification that later become the victims of the very
process they initiated.
In this sense, Rosebud loves Çukurcuma because it has been gentrified and because she loves the
‘authenticity’ of this gentrification. Similarly, she does not like Tophane because the people still
resist against change. However, she is also one of the victims of gentrification; it was
gentrification that caused her eviction from her previous gallery. Therefore, Rosebud provides a
dichotomous account of gentrification. Sharon Zukin (1996) explains this situation as the tension
between different “layers” of cultures. In the case of Rosebud, the first tension is the one between
the high culture and low culture. Rosebud considers artists, architects, art gallerists and the like as
having a sophisticated high culture. On the other hand, Tophaneli, since they ignore ‘culture’ as
she defines it, are unsophisticated and therefore represent the low culture.
The fact that people in Tophane do not change (and, even more so, do not want to change) does
not mean that there is no gentrification in Tophane. Indeed, micro-gentrification occurs also in
Tophane. However, the difference that emerges from Rosebud’s perspective between Cukurcuma
and Tophane is that in Tophane gentrification does not occur following her view of culture and
change, but rather it follows the actions and goals of the other Tophaneli. In fact, it might be
called gentrification-from-the-inside. This means that Tophaneli have overpowered the
29
gentrification process in Tophane. Many of them now own their apartments and other properties.
In fact, as far as I know, Tophaneli owns three out of the seven gallery spaces. They are very well
aware of the fact that renting their properties to art galleries or people with a view similar to that
of Rosebud will raise the value of their properties. The gentrification-from-the-inside does not
necessarily mean that Tophaneli will never sell their properties. Many of my informants clearly
stated that if someone offers a good price for their properties they are willing to sell them, as long
as they are sure they’ll get a maximum profit. Most certainly, some Tophaneli might eventually
be victims of this gentrification-from-the-inside process, such as those who do not own any
property, or the Romani People.
The story of those who don’t have a voice
The night had just come to Istanbul. The lazy end-summer weather was fondling the painted grey
walls of the old Depo building in Tophane. On the night of September 21st, 2010, there was
nothing unusual for the Depo building, until a bunch of angry faces passed through the street in
front of the building. To be true, even this was not tremendously particular; Depo saw angry
mobs in Tophane plenty of times. Actually, one week before that night, there was an opening in
the gallery situated on the ground floor of Depo. Everything was quite normal till few people
walked into the courtyard and threatened the owners of the gallery and managers of the building
because they were drinking. However, nothing happened and Depo stood there. Depo did not get
its share from the attacks of September 21st. The angry mob (which apparently gathered
somewhere close to Depo) passed by the building, maybe few of then threw an angry look at the
building, but that was it. Nothing more.
Depo is the only artistic/cultural institution that was not affected by the attack. Why wasn’t
another flag of Tophane’s gentrification not targeted? This final story is not the story of an
individual who lives in Tophane. This is a story of an old building, which experienced a vast
change in recent years, narrated by two individuals who work in the building and live nearby.
Depo literally means ‘the storage house.’ Its story is significant because it narrates the change of
neighborhood as it gathers individuals from different circles under the same roof.
Asena was born in Istanbul, and she spent almost all her life in the area of Beyoglu. She studied
in the borough, she lived there, and started her work life there, and she still spends most of her
time in the neighborhood. However, Tophane is a relatively new part of Beyoglu for her. She has
been there only for the last five years, since she became the cultural manager of Depo. Her
feelings about Tophane are confusing: “I am always saying that I am Tophaneli. I am spending all
30
my life here. After starting working here in 2007, I decided to move to the neighborhood as well.
But, at the same time, I’m also not. I am not Tophaneli. Why? Because, ‘This is Tophane!’
(Burasi Tophane) I do not belong here. People, here, won’t accept me as a member of the
Tophane community.”
She knows the history of the building in which she works quite well: “The name already explains
it very well. It used to be a storage room for almost a century, even more maybe. I only know the
story after 1924, because that’s the date in which the grandfather of the owner of this building and
founder of this cultural institution migrated from Greece as a part of population exchange1. The
owner’s ancestor’s were lucky. They were able to exchange their properties in Greece with some
properties in Istanbul with an Istanbulite Greek family. The Depo building was one of them. As I
told you, the name speaks for itself. The building was used for a long time as a storage space for
Tobacco. In fact, the old name of the building was Tobacco Storage (Tutun Deposu). Sometimes,
people still use this name. Even us.
There are still some people living in the neighborhood who worked in the Depo when it was
tobacco storage. In their memory this space is still the storage, not a cultural institute. The closure
of the port deeply affected the neighborhood. They say Tophane was Tophane, back then. A lot of
people compare today’s Tophane and the one before the closure of the port. They do not like
today’s Tophane. I think this is why they are not happy with us. Depo, also, was affected from the
closure. Yet, the owner wanted to keep the building. It was still used as a storage place, after the
closure of the port. Then, in 2007, the owner decided to turn this building into what it is today: a
cultural institute. However, he did not change the name. If you ask me I do not know why he
wanted to open such an institution in here, he had another bigger property in a better
neighborhood.”
Pink was born in Tophane. He is a Romani people. His family came to Istanbul during the
population exchange with Greece in 1924, from Thessaloniki. They first lived in many other parts
of Istanbul until they decided to move to Tophane where many Romani people were living
towards the end of 1940s. Tophane was considered to be a good living space for Romani people
because of various temporary job opportunities. Pink’s father was a carrier, the job which himself
1
The population exchange between Turkey and Greece occured in 1923. Two countries signed the
“Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations” in Lausanne on January 30th,
1923, which agrees upon the terms of exchanging 1.5 million Anatolian Greeks living in newly established
Republic of Turkey with 500,000 Muslims in Greece. It was a major compulsory movement.
31
‘inherited’ from his father. Pink’s mother, like many other Romani people women of the time,
was working in the tobacco storage for classification of different tobacco kinds. He, himself,
sometimes works for Depo as well. He works as a carrier in Depo and in many other galleries
when it is necessary.
“Thirty/forty years ago Tophane was Tophane’s brother. From this sloppy house towards the
upper end of the neighborhood, everywhere was Romani household. People from Siirt and Bitlis
were the minority. In these times there were fun, joy, happiness in the neighborhood. Romani
people do not care about possessions that much. They seize the day. That’s why they don’t make
any money. My mother, even sometimes my father, they both worked in the tobacco storage.
Back then; this was the biggest private storage in Tophane. The owner, god protects him, was
paying really good money to my parents. Then, the port closed and we stayed here penniless.
Penniless, my brother. I had hard times to feed my family. Thanks god, the owner gave me a job
in Depo. When they call me, I help then to carry stuff. They have been very helpful to me.
Tophane is changing, my brother. Thanks to art galleries and places like Depo, Tophane is
becoming more and more beautiful. Before, people were afraid of stepping in the streets of
Tophane. Now, you can see everybody here; Germans, Americans, Dutch, and French. Before,
even people from Istanbul did not know how Tophane looked like, now it is getting known in the
whole world. They embellished the neighborhood, now there is everything, but there is no
pleasure, no joy, and no friendship. Before it was creepy, but the connections between neighbors
were very strong. Now, it’s beautiful, but nobody speaks with each other; they turn their back
when they see you. Why this happened, brother? Because Romani people left. Why they left?
They wanted to go away from here. People started to fight with each other. Others [meaning
people from Siirt and Bitlis] started to make pressure on Romani people. For sure, we have our
own ways to respond to the pressure, but Romani people do not want any trouble, brother. So,
they left, and Tophane became a dead town.”
Pink never speaks about the attack. For him the attack is not that crucial in the story of Tophane.
He thinks that what made Tophane Tophane were the Romani people; when they left, Tophane
lost its joy. He narrates the change in Tophane through the Depo building. When it was a storage,
it was creepy, poor-looking, not fancy at all. However, he was considering this building as a part
of his, and his family’s story. He still wins his bread in Depo. Today, the building is more
beautiful, as he puts it. However, he does not enjoy it. The main reason for this, as he puts it, is
not directly the gentrification of the area, but the removal of Romani people, which one might see
as one of the outcomes of the gentrification process in Tophane. In fact, the way Pink sees
32
gentrification presents Romani people as the main ‘victims’ of the process, and, with them, the
characteristic joy that before was a feature of the neighbourhood. Considering the story from this
point of view, what Pink says appears to be evident. Especially, the lower parts of the
neighborhood were long known as Romani people areas. Now, you could count the Romani
inhabitants on the fingers of your hands.
Asena, on the other hand, does not necessarily place Depo at the center of the gentrification
process in Tophane. She says: “When we first established the institution here, it was very hard.
Since this place has never been used in a practical wayy, the small shops around were parking
their cars in the courtyard. When we wanted to use the courtyard for ourselves, they reacted
shouting: ‘This is Tophane! You cannot behave as you like, here. This is our neighborhood!’
However, we never receive any severe threat and are never victims of physical violence as the
other art spaces were. I think the main reason is the persona of the owner. All in all, he is not an
inexperienced, young gallerist. He is a rich businessman, who knows the neighborhood very well,
whose father and grandfather offered charity in the neighborhood. So, this place has good
relations with the neighborhood. On the contrary, art galleries in Tophane do not connect
themselves with the neighborhood. So, that is why they did not attack us. But, be careful I don’t
say this to claim that such violence towards the galleries is right.
Selfing/Othering in Gentrification
The storytellers of this paper all propose ‘their own’ narration of the attack and the way ‘they’
see, perceive and understand the process of gentrification. While doing it, they create a sphere,
composed by a group of people and a collection of streets to which they feel to “belong”. Black,
for example, sees himself as belonging to the mosques, to the prayers, to the ‘glorious’ past of
Tophane in the Ottoman era. He still imagines the neighborhood as a place where the rich help
the poor, where the strong protect the weak. For Crocus, Tophane means the nostalgia of the old
Istanbulites. She feels like she belongs to the times during which Muslims were living together
with Jews, Armenians and Greeks in ‘harmony’. For Rosebud, Tophane is a business space, a
potential artistic space. However, Tophane, for her, is definitely not a space that she belongs to.
She does not belong to this Tophane, where the streets are smelly and dirty, where the people are
rude. She belongs to spaces with a similar vibe, with such an historical background, like
Çukurcuma, but where she feels that the space is a “living organism,” where the buildings have a
“character,” Where people are open to ‘modernize’ the space and their lifestyle, while still
preserving some traits of the area.
33
Black, Crocus, and Rosebud give their subjective opinions about the their social position over the
attack of September 2010 and the process of gentrification. These social subjectivities impose an
identity, a social cluster, and a cultural differentiation over their individual position. They
constitute a sphere in which they can call themselves and those they consider close to them as
“we” and exclude and estrange people who they think are not similar to them by othering them,
by framing them as “others”. This process of selfing/otherizing can be usefully analyzed and
grasped by referring to grammars of identity and alterity. Gerd Baumann explains this process as
the grammars of excluding (2004, p.18). The use of language appears to be the primary tool of
such exclusion process. When Black says “They think this neighborhood is theirs,” “they opened
a gay hostel,” or “we can’t leave the neighborhood unattended;” or when Rosebud complains by
saying “they are dirty,” or “they will not learn,” they both form ‘their’ own grammar of alterity.
The subjects that they use are the same but the people they refer to are the opposite. In other
words, the “we” of Black appears to be the “they” of Rosebud, and vice versa. This identification
of “we” and “they” designates the social subjectivities of Black, Rosebud, Crocus, Pink, Asena
and the others. One of the main reason of the attack of September 2010 is, indeed, the
selfing/othering process taking place in Tophane. “We” attacked “them.” “We” had to run away
from “them,” because “we/they” were not “them/us.”
Surely, it is not merely a linguistic
problem. It also refers to, frames, and performs in different ways also an imagined horizon, a
desirable future, a ways of practicing and performing the neighborhood that contrast with other
such ways.
Although selfing and othering seem like uncompromising ends of a line, since a self is supposed
to be the opposite of the other and to completely differ from it, they are in fact the outcomes of
the same process. That is why, Baumann named this process as “selfing/othering,” (with a slash
in between) because he holds that they are “two faces of the same process” (2004, p.19). They
should not be considered as completely distinguished from each other. Thus, every “us” excludes
“them,” by bearing to the notion of resemblance. However, as Gingrich (2004) argues, the notion
of othering is not strong, rather it’s “weak,” “temporary,” “fluid,” and “multidimensional.” There
are no clear-cut boundaries between the self of Tophaneli and the others who are living in the
neighborhood. The same is applicable the other way around. In Tophane, identities are not
singular, people do not identify themselves as being either high class or low class; either
representative of the art world or neighborhood people; either attackers or attacked, and the like.
Instead, they create a sphere in which all kinds of given identities have blurry borders.
34
The gentrified building Depo is a good example of this hybriditization in Tophane. Depo is the
space where Asena and Pink come together and share (even if not on a completely equal and
symmetrical footing) a space, and create a hybrid space of identities. Their idea of othering
appears not to be dependent on a strong otherization of each other, but bears upon a slight
difference coming from the sharing of sameness. If we go back to the subjectivities in Tophane
after the attack of September 2010, these are presented as positions within a conflict of
nonnegotiable social identities. However, Baumann suggest, “subjectivities are multidimensional,
fluid, [and temporary]; they include power-related ascriptions by selves as well as by others; and
they simultaneously combine sameness, or belonging, with alterity, or otherness” (2004, p.x). The
testimonies about the attack of September 2010 point out this multiplicity, fluidity, temporality,
complexity and messiness.
In lieu of Conclusion
The multiplicity of subjectivities not only creates a complex account of the attack, but also
confuses the situation of the gentrification process in Tophane. The attack does not appear to be a
full-steam resistance to gentrification. For instance, Black does not complain about the price
changes in the apartments in which the neighborhood residents’ life. In fact, he seems to be happy
about the increase in prices. In addition, he believes Tophaneli give a violent reaction when it
comes to a ‘potential danger’ to the neighborhood, as Black puts it “they simply attack” (“they,”
here, means Tophaneli – another expression of selfing/othering grammar, in which “they” this
time connotes the self, but a slightly removed one). The phrase “they simply attack” reduces the
possibility of considering the attack of September 2010 as some kind of holistic resistance to the
gentrification process, because it appears to be a normal feature of Tophaneli to attack when
feeling in danger.
Yet, it does not mean that we should entirely exclude the aspect of resistance against the
gentrification process. Since the reasons for the attack proposed are framed differently, for
example as an attack towards a certain lifestyle, an attempt to preserve the ‘dignity’ of the
neighborhood, an assault towards openly drinking outside, and the like, leaving resistance to
gentrification out of the analysis would lead to a misinterpretation of the phenomenon. All in all,
gentrification is not merely a change in the façades of the building or a simple boost in the rental
prices of the apartments, but a deeper process that includes a socio-cultural transformation in the
given environment (Zukin, 1996). From this very logic, the attack of September 2010 might be
seen as a resistant reaction towards the social and cultural changes in Tophane (especially clear in
the arguments put forward by Black, in which the reasons are the opening of art galleries and gay
35
hostels in Tophane, drinking in public, making the neighborhood visible and creating awareness,
etc.) As a result, the attack of September 2010 might or might not be seen as part of or a reaction
against the gentrification process depending on which logic of horizon of possibilities is taken
into account.
However, saying that the attack is a form of resistance against something and not something else
does not aim to offer a simplifying analysis of the incident, nor to explain away the attacks
through simplistic versions of what the social is, nor an attempt to put the attack and the wider
gentrification process in Tophane on a solid ground. On the contrary, the confusion, the
multiplicity of interepretations, here, shows the multiplicity and diversity of positions over a
single case, namely that of the attack of September 2010 and the general gentrification process in
Tophane. Complex and diverse testimonies of the tensions and conflicts emerging from and
leading to the attack of September 2010 and the heterogeneous opinions about the gentrification
process in Tophane prevent us from making a singular, homogeneous analysis that relies on the
Grand Theories of gentrification. Instead, the actors unfolded in the research prove that the
“practices” (even when they are mainly discursive ones) of the tension during the attack and
during the course of the gentrification process provide a glimpse beyond the theory of
gentrification, onto more lived realities.
John Law argues that Actor-network theory (ANT) is a “rare term that embodies a tension”. He
continues, “it is intentionally oxymoronic, a tension, which lies between the centered actor, on the
one hand and decentered ‘network’ on the other” (1999, p.5). Gentrification literature, however,
fails to narrate a multidimensional account of tension between the actors of gentrification in the
course of interaction (network). The very term gentrification might be considered as the tension,
here. Gentrification schools, be they Marxist or liberal, are a politically charged branch of social
sciences in academia, which mainly attempts to create awareness and find alternative, egalitarian,
and fair paths to urban development, and reduce the tension between the different groups who
share the city space. Gentrification was born from a tension, from a network involving different
actors, from the heterogeneous perceptions of the city space, from the complex cultural
multiplicity of urban areas, and, yet, scholarly literature fails to capture all these multiplicities,
heterogeneity, tensions and relationships accurately.
Glass, as we saw in the introduction, a pioneer in the field, recognized this newly developing
phenomenon in the early 1960s and named it. His followers like Smith, Ley, and Hamnett gave
thorough descriptions and analysis of gentrification through the linkages with neo-liberal
economical development or state intervention on the city space. These early works on
36
gentrification provide very limited or no information about the role of the individual actors in the
phenomenon. The descriptions employ a top-down perspective. In a manner of speaking, Glass,
Ley, Smith, and Hamnett, while criticizing the top-down neo-liberal policies or the nonhumanistic
approach of the political authority, reproduce, on an ontological level, the same mistake of those
they criticize by erasing the polyphony of voices, and multiplicity of practices that make the
tensions of gentrification a complex, ongoing, and changing phenomenon of social, cultural,
economic and special transformation. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Deutche, Ryan, Stuart, and
Coaffee ‘discovered’ the role of pioneer actors in gentrification. The role of the artists and artoriented institutions, such as modern art museums and art galleries, was put forward in the
literature on this phenomenon. Yet, the attempts to bring individual voices in the gentrification
literature remained on a superficial level. Instead of a holistic analysis of the multiple relations
between the human and non-human actors of gentrification, they settle for a simplistic analysis
regarding artists as the main cause of gentrification. They explain it away by referring to a
simplified social sphere and reductionist causality.
Only very few texts about gentrification dig out the issue of the diversity and multiplicity of
actors, to some degree. Sharon Zukin in The Culture of Cities (1996) tries to understand which
different dimensions of ‘cultures’ –ethnic, economical or sociological—shape the city space. She
uses this to argue that the city space is “divided”. It is segregated according to social
consciousness and cultural attachments. The frontiers, here, are in the social imaginaries of a
Mexican restaurant waitress, a white businessman, a Chinese philosophy student in New York,
which include a fear of the ‘other’, leading to the hesitation to enter specifically defined urban
areas, and attempt to cope with and tame the uncannyness of the city. Another work that deals
with diversity in gentrification is Gentrification and Grassroots of Resistance in San Franciso’s
Tenderloin by Tony Robinson (1995), which analyzes the Tenderloin activist movement for the
urban regeneration process in Tenderloin, San Francisco. This research is noticeable for bringing
the voice of ‘ordinary people’ into the literature.
Yet, both works (together with other similar ones) are unsatisfactory in bringing the complex
dimensions of the gentrification process on the streets. The pioneers of gentrification literature
theorize a homogeneous path to gentrification, in which urban classes such as middle-classes,
bobos, the art world, and the like rush into an area, culturally modify the place according to their
needs, and gradually leading to a boost in the house market, which culminates with the
dislocation or the removal of the previous or original inhabitants of the place. Also, a clear
problem with these two works is that they are obviously and quintessentially North American.
37
Their problem, their social fabric, and their characteristic urban structure emerge very clearly and
are not at all generalizable as much as they would want it to be, especially for a case of such a
different city like Istanbul. Although this analysis can be true from a bird’s eye view of
gentrification, it might cause us to lose not only one, but numerous other dimensions of this
process. These Grand Theories of gentrification create the illusion of a single perspective to look
at gentrification, refuse the ephemeral and fluid character of social reality, aiming instead for a
stable, unchangeable, positioned true, which is the one of the writer/researcher.
Others authors, like Zukin and Robinson, allow the subject to speak for him/herself to a certain
level, allowing for the integration of a few more dimensions into gentrification literature. Thus,
they create a plurality of voices in the field. This heterogeneity allows the reader to capture the
“changing relations between subject and object and […] the spatial configuration through which
they are constituted” (Hetherington, 1999, p.48). However, offering a few new dimensions to the
gentrification literature might not be enough to reflect the overall messiness, complexity and
multiplicity of gentrification on the street to the paper. It can be useful when trying to give voice,
in a typical social sciences move, to those who are considered to be subaltern, those that are
excluded from other accounts, those who are erased from history or from social reality. But this
does not mean that this allows us to grasp what is ‘really’ going on. Rather, it shapes an
alternative version that shares with the hegemonic (macro-scale, usually) version similar claims to
be the true referent of a unique, ‘real’ reality out there. Considering this, Annemarie Mol suggests
that a single dimension provides a “stable, given, universal character” of reality. However, she
argues instead, reality is “historically, culturally, and materially located.” This means that what
‘reality’ is is not a given, is not out there, and is not singular, nor plural. This last point is crucial.
To allow reality to be told from different perspectives does “break away from a monopolistic
version of truth. But, it does not multiply reality. It multiplies the eyes of beholder” (1999, p.7476). Pluralism, in this reading, still holds claims to a ‘real’ reality out there, but offers space for
other views or perspectives on it. In that it separates ‘reality’, considered as a given out-there,
from the beholder, which can only observe reality in different ways, pluralism is unable to shift
from a Western ontological position that holds the presence of a unified reality out there. This
position came to be known as perspectivalism in debates within and beyond anthropology (cf.
Strathern, 2004, Viveiros de Castro, 1999, and the special issue of Common Knowledge on
comparisons, 2011). Therefore, perspectivalism does not offer us ways to shift our common ideas
about reality and to talk about the mundane realities of everyday life, but it shapes a specifically
Western version of reality. Mol criticizes perspectivalism in “that reality does not precede the
38
mundane practices in which we interact with it, but is rather shaped within these practices.”
Following this logic, the perception of the attack, the imagination of city space in people’s
accounts, their practices of living and sharing the space, their knowledge about gentrification are
“messy and delimiting them[, they] require us to be able to constantly adjust ourselves
accordingly.” (Hetherington, 1999, p.51)
Last Words
To capture what could be an ANT-informed conceptualization of gentrification we should make a
careful critique, characterized by “a constant reflexivity, an attention to multiplicity and practices,
tinkering with and adjusting to the alternatives.” (Ibid.) Although throughout this paper the attack
and the stories about gentrification have been discussed thoroughly, the real issue, here, are
different practices taking place around a single event like the September 2010 attack. The
different narratives of the storytellers featuring in this paper put the attack, in turn, in term of a
reaction to a gentrification process, a simple assault, a violent act of ‘underdeveloped’ people, and
a continuum of a local tradition. In fact, the attack of September 2010 brings different dimensions
into the framing of gentrification.
Black evokes the dimension of the conservative inhabitants of Tophane who are born and spent
all their life in Tophane. He depicts the opposition against the gentrification as a process that
brings newcomers to the neighborhood like people from the art world and homosexuals, who, as
he puts it, blur the savory of the neighborhood, while at the same time he clearly shows that he
might enjoy the overall outcome of gentrification by selling his property for a good price.
Another Tophaneli, Crocus frames gentrification from a historical perspective, which is
completely different from Black’s framing. She relates modern day’s attack to the old ones; thus,
she creates a historical network between those different events, considering the social and cultural
movements of the people. All in all, these two narratives bring the voices of the neighborhood
people into the literature of gentrification with almost no interference by the researcher. Rosebud,
on the other hand, honestly expresses the emotions of an art gallery owner in a conservative
neighborhood that is in the edge of a still gentrifying area. It might not seem a novelty for the
literature on gentrification, yet none of the researcher, to my knowledge, let a so-called
‘gentrifier’ speak for him/herself. In addition to the human actors of Tophane, Depo, as a nonhuman but crucial actor of gentrification, narrates its own story with the help of two humans who
experienced and are experiencing the past and present of the building. I find attending to this
tremendously important, because although gentrification, per se, attempts at conceptualizing a
39
problem between human beings over non-human entities, there is no literature that explicitly
tinkers with the non-human actors of gentrification.
In the above, I tried to bring forward new dimensions at play in gentrification processes. Let’s not
forget, though, that all these new dimensions are, indeed, alternative understandings or version of
gentrification, but that there are many others which could not figure in this paper. The stories
gathered here should not be considered as a plurality of perspectives on the same issue, as Mol
would put it, but instead they are just a small sample of a wider mess, a multiplicity of alternative
ways of talking about gentrification, which also shape and frame alternative, coexisting ways of
practicing it. Surely enough, attending to these accounts of gentrification causes to lose some
other dimensions of the process, namely an account that prioritizes simplicity, monocausal
explanation, and linear perspectivalism. In this paper, such straightforward conceptualization has
been sacrificed for the sake of seeking the lived realities of the streets.
While not offering a conclusive, holistic, self-contained story of gentrification, this work offered
an overview of the multiplicity of actors intervening into an event connected to gentrification in
Tophane. Seeking an explanation to the violent attacks of September 2010, we met with a number
of narratives bringing in different explanatory discourses that foreground a fan of alternative
versions of the event and the reasons behind it. This reminds us of the traditional job of the
anthropologist, namely to attend to the informants’ versions of the events. Simultaneously, it
points at the constant and ongoing messiness and complexity of such events, calling for an
awareness of the multiplicity of the ontological grounds we move on, an awareness that does not
limit itself to offer a plurality of voices, but requires a deeper anthropological engagement. One
that is able to account for the various, multiple realities, and to go past the Western framing of a
unified reality out there.
In doing this, I gave special attention to multiple narratives, foregrounding the different logics at
play in gentrification clashes. I did this to interfere with what I referred to as Grand Theories of
gentrification, while at the same time attending to the versions that are mobilized by the actors
directly involved in the attack of September 2010. This, I hope, showed how different
understanding of the event coexist and inform different practices and ways of living, and doing
gentrification. Besides contributing a specific case that is not American or European but that
follows different logics and moves in a different social and urban fabric, this also offered an
alternative theoretical ground, one that acknowledges the crucial importance of moving past
perspectivalism and to look at social realities in their enacted and lived ongoing complexities.
40
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