Heterotopia in Istanbul

…#cityspace, something for the #citymooc, a supplement & companion piece or exemplum to Foucault's essay, Of Other Spaces (1967), one of many…spaces in Borges, Eco, Calvino. It illustrates Foucault's "oppositions that we regard as simple givens: for example between private space and public space, between family space and social space, between cultural space and useful space…"

The protests and occupations in Istanbul and other cities in Turkey began with but have now expanded far beyond the initial gathering in Taksim Gezi Park.

A Turkish colleague has been closely following these events and offers some useful links and insights:

“Everywhere is Taksim, Resistance Everywhere”

“The Right to the City Movement and the Turkish Summer”

Gezi Park Occupation (liveblog)

Lara Fresko’s twitter account

In the second article, there are also useful links to find out about the kinds of demolishings, displacements, and dispossessions caused by the top-down urban transformation projects forcefully implemented since the mid-2000s. 

Heterotopia in Istanbul | occasional links & commentary