The city, urbanism and refugees within the context of temporality and ephemerality: City-camp-city in Istanbul

This research questions how ephemeral urbanism functions as a temporary organizing tool for rapidly changing conditions in the context of time, mobility, action and uncertainty. It provides a narrative on the ways Syrian refugees self-organize themselves in Istanbul beyond state provisions in the context of ephemeral urbanism. Ethnographic narrative is used as a methodology to present a common ground for interchangeable perspectives in identifying and exploring the ephemeral relations between urban space and inhabitants, the subjective qualities of the space and the practices of everyday life, and the personal experiences and stories. In doing so, it is expected to present a narrative on collective memories based on ephemeral ways of living. It is hoped that the results of the research provides guidance in creating a medium for permanent socio-spatial solutions. As our cities witness a massive flux of mobility due to unprecedentedly vigorous political, economic, religious and ethnic conflict, ephemeral urbanism becomes a major topic in the field of urban planning and design. Regarding the conventional orthodoxy on ephemeral urbanism, with a range from religious outposts to refugee clusters and camps, camps operate as temporary cities that autonomously develop complexity and organization. Such direct forms of ephemeral urbanism allow the reconfiguration of space and social interactions while sharing the temporality. The cities, on the other hand, are increasingly gaining a new ephemerality and operating as camps themselves in dialectic between cities and camps. From the displacements based on radical urban transformation projects to the massive immigration flux of the Syrians, Istanbul, today, constitutes an important example to explore the dynamics of permanent ephemerality of urban space. In this case, the city treated as ephemeral. Registered Syrians in Turkey, 90% of whom are living outside camps. Istanbul is the city that received Syrian refugees that have settled mostly at the former migrant neighborhoods. The situation that started in 2011 with the hosting and emergency assistance for Syrians in Turkey evolved in a way that Syrians were temporarily protected and dispersed to different parts of the country. The concept of 'temporary permanence' has been introduced in 2015 reflecting the ambiguity of the government's approach to the issue and the difficulties it faces in producing comprehensive strategies. The majority of 'guests' in the city face severe problems with limited access to basic services and social exclusion. NGOs have established solidarity platforms for the provision of temporary protection, but the number of unregistered Syrians, who don't know how to connect with these relief organizations cannot be underestimated. Reducing the problematic of the refugee crisis and uncertain flux of human beings into 'statistics' only helps us to perceive the dimension of the crisis mathematically. Statistics do not mention about who these people are, where they come from, why the fled or die. It comes short of understanding the meanings, everyday dynamics, the stories within and beyond. Thus, this research provides an ethnographic narrative on the ways Syrian refugees self-organize themselves in Istanbul beyond state provisions in the context of ephemeral urbanism. The research focuses on two different presence of ephemerality in İstanbul: The first focuses on ephemerality in the peripheral neighborhood of Yarimburgaz in Küçükçekmece district that had constituted a 'community' and been able to partially benefit from temporary protection. The second, on the other hand, focuses on a historic inner-city neighborhood of Vefa in Fatih district, which has significant urban dynamics such as history, culture, and spatial qualities. In order to establish a fiduciary relationship with the families and accelerate the research process, a local relief and solidarity organization was reached out in the neighborhood of Yarımburgaz. Several visits to related migration management state offices and other solidarity networks in Istanbul took place to get more detailed information about the scope of works on expanding the migrant network, the bureaucratic processes and problem solving tools. The lifestyle, habits of spatial use, needs, and relationships dynamics were examined primarily via observation and interviews, and secondarily via previous documentation and visual materials. Same families were visited once in a week and the visits were based on partially unstructured interviews as they lead the conversations, which were recorded as much as the community allowed. Here the main aim was to transfer their point of view directly without any comment of researchers. The success of the interviews was also subject to the permissions from projected interviewees that negotiations could be made at regular intervals throughout the process with the same families or groups. Such a research has presented its own research limitations including access, language and visual materials. Since the study depends on having access to people, the interviews especially in Vefa neighborhood cannot be practiced due to lack of safety in neighborhood, avoidance of study group and language. Vefa has been transformed as an inner city ghetto with poor living conditions and high crime rate of drug selling. The mobilizing of refugee people varies from time to time. Physical structure is completely different than Yarimburgaz. There are many ruined, abandoned, partially collapsed buildings, which are still in use. It is clear that, the integration programs or help of NGOs are not discussible at this area. Within this scope, a number of specific remarks can be drawn out to enlighten the findings of the research: (i) Vefa and Yarimburgaz neighborhoods showcase diverse narratives on the experiences of ephemerality. Living conditions are directly related with how Syrians experience and build their stories on ephemerality. (ii) Both neighborhoods, as examples of inner-city slum and peripheral city, are enclosed and invisibly isolated urban systems. (iii) Spontaneous moments strengthen emotions of joy, unity and solidarity even Syrians living in Istanbul have tragic background and poor living conditions. (iv) The state's control mechanisms, social borders or political tensions, as well as insufficient integration policies, affect the mobility of Syrians refugees in the city. (v) Restriction of mobility causes isolated places and social groups as well as in means of social fractionation. The Syrians living in Istanbul often point out that their habits of life and their rituals cannot be performed in the city, and that there is no 'place' here for them. Action cannot manifest its existence in means of producing a political discourse. (vi)While uncertainty prevents to make long-term plans, in this ambiguous environment, organizing, solidarity, improvisation and short-term plans present the effectiveness of ephemeral urbanism. As a conclusion, ephemeral urbanism is a rapid organizing tool in emergency spatial changes, it simulates itself and creates unusual atmosphere by spatial and social matters. While the political ambiguousness reinforces the idea of being ephemeral on human, it reflects different ways on urban space. Regarding the two case study areas, Yarimburgaz's settled, steady spatial and social conditions give the impression of temporality for a permanent period, in contrast to Vefa's ephemerality and uncertainty in both spatial and social dimensions. In both cases show that perception of time ephemeral itself based on spontaneous moments. Mobility of refugees living in the city is limited by invisible borders and the action has no place to perform itself. Hence the uncertainty is continuous and temporality is permanent. In this sense it can be said that the life in Yarımburgaz and Vefa have very similar human conditions as camps which are based on surviving in daily life. In other words, the camps operate as cities when they acquire a political discourse with critical, social, economic processes. On the other hand, the camp paradigm emerges in cities when the cities create limited, closed systems where the 'others' are governed, and only the 'labor' exists.