Transformation of migrant women's 'border' perceptions through new urban spaces: İstanbul urban practices

This thesis focuses on the experiences of migrant women in urban spaces at their new city of arrival, their relations and tactics concerning this city. Moreover, it studies the personal level interactions with the urban space and the alterations in their perceptions of border through various urban practices. Conceptually, the study undertakes migration in urban context as discontinuity, and considers it vital to the existence of the city. Here, migration is not approached as a state of victimization, but it is undertaken within the basic existential dynamics of postmodern cities. According to the contemporary approach, the construction of the migrant identity is a process where it is in a continuous change, transformation and movement. The state of being a migrant is not constantly carried as a stable identity but it is an outcome of a process within a defined period, and a probable experience for every person in today's circumstances. The thesis studied women who migrated alone to Istanbul for different reasons via various mediums. This one-to-one in-depth analysis utilises discussions from the sociology of senses while it engages tools from visual sociology. It attempts to contribute with a critique to the contemporary discussions on the persisting dualist understandings in social gender from a space-based perspective. To this end, it gives emphasis on the ways in which the women perceive their state of being a migrant and focuses on their use of urban spaces. The women taking place in this study has been consciously made part of the research rather than being handled as objects. For this reason, the co-productionist approach has been at the epicentre of the research. The research reveals migrant women's tactics used for the production of daily urban practices and their perspectives for the city, space and commons within the metropolitan dynamics. In addition, it shows that Istanbul becomes a cosmopolitan hinge city with new passerbys and permanents who produce various encounters in their daily use of the city. With their urban experiences, the meaning of the space was changed, the social networks of the women were transformed, and their perceptions regarding their potentials, spaces and identities were differentiated. With the memory acquired in Istanbul, they constructed places within the city by applying various means. While walking is the most remarkable amongst these means, the social networks, as women solidarity, have also proved to be equally essential. This study elaborates on a phenomenological level through subject-person approach, rather than presenting a generalised urban experience of all women. A substantial part of the thesis is comprised of the women's self-evaluation of their migration experience, recollection of their space-based socialisations and feelings shared in their narratives. In this sense, me and my supervisor Dr. Ayşen Şatıroğlu were also engaged in a voyage through the migration narratives of the women. For this reason, this thesis may as well be considered a travel experience. The aim is to momentarily open a window to the various practices produced in various places of Istanbul and see how the women and the city co-shaped each other through this moment. It discusses the changes in their perceptions of border through these processes rather than studying how they reached to Istanbul. Key words: urban, woman, migration, border, space