City, space and cultural interaction: Kadıköy

This thesis is an attempt to examine Kadıköy, which has undergone a rapid structural, demographic, economic and cultural transformation with the 2010s, by putting the interaction of all these fields in the research center, relying on the literature and methodological opportunities offered by cultural studies. The main purpose of the study is to analyze the cultural atmosphere that is being constructed around the time-spatial transformations in Kadıköy, through the dynamics of current local cultural elements and by examining the differentiations in lifestyles; and it is also to reveal the socio-economic contexts that trigger the emergence of these cultural structures. The main research question of the thesis is how Kadıköy, which forms a historical core in metropolitan Istanbul, has undergone an urban/spatial transformation. During the dynamic transformation process, the focus of interaction that determines the social reproduction/construction of space in various layers and forms and the discursive and cultural atmosphere produced by these centers of interaction are examined. The main purpose of the thesis is to examine the contemporary cultural texture of Kadıköy in a multidimensional way in the context of time and space (relationship / interaction between the spirit of time and the texture of space). Transformation in space practices often points to transformations and sometimes ruptures in social life imaginations. While the transformation experienced in Kadıköy is examined in detail in the context of daily life practices throughout the study, it is one of the important aims of this research to focus on the analysis of the transformation in the social imaginations experienced in the background. The research findings are presented in three separate chapters, which are thought to be the main axes of the problematic throughout the thesis. For the analysis of the atmosphere created by spatial and cultural transformation in Kadıköy, the first part focuses on the construction process of today's local, the second focuses on the culture-art-oriented consumption-oriented transformation, and the third focuses on the encounters with the urban mobility created by this transformation and their socio-economic connections. Some of the claims and determinations that we can consider as the results of the research are as follows. First of all, the fact that a part of the new middle class, who adopted the urban lifestyles, "has secular, aspirational demands and even has an anarcho-left liberal cultural surface" (Şimşek, 2020: 18), prefers to live in a historical core like Kadıköy. It can contribute to the continuity of interaction-oriented socialization forms it provides. Secondly, attention was drawn to the spatial segregation of the city and the squeeze in the context of libertarian lifestyles. Thirdly, the squeeze in terms of "choice" of residence also applies to the leisure and entertainment sector. Space is shrinking not only for marginal or libertarian lifestyles, but also for forms of idleness that were traditionally possible within the city. This shrinkage brings with it an influx into and concentration in Kadıköy, and while the neighborhood is currently establishing connections with transnational lifestyles, it is becoming a closed place within Istanbul, where it is included in the urban geography. With this closure, the neighborhood evolves towards creating a place identity that embraces countercultures within the metropolis. Fourthly, this identity is in continuity with the spatial character of Kadıköy, which has historically carried cultural capital and is open to differences. The fifth claim is that Kadıköy has a strong secondary position as an attractive urban center with its bohemian bourgeois life dynamics with high cultural capital, which creates a solid ground for peace and enjoyment. Kadıköy, as a historical core with a strong spatial character, is located in a position that is not at the periphery, but not at the primary. Kadıköy's strong spatial identity's continuity is associated with its secondary position in İstanbul. Our sixth claim is that this dynamic process, which has creative production potential as much as it produces conflict areas, reproduces the established meanings and values contained in the spatial texture in Kadıköy in a new way, including the market logic. Our seventh claim is that although authentic elements in the spatial character of Kadıköy are at risk of losing their authenticity within the strong global market dynamics that permeate the neighborhoods, the ways in which they can preserve themselves can also be negotiated. Kadıköy, with its openness to countercultures based on its cultural capital, is also a neighborhood where anti-capitalist and anti-hegemonic global ideas and ideologies are in circulation and its spatial practices can be kept visible. The concentration of these ideas and ideologies in global circulation, which we can associate with new social movements, in Kadıköy as daily activities that find their way through some cracks in the relations of domination and aim to transform daily life in micro spaces, presents a holistic expression in interaction with each other. The holistic density of this expression is not only a cultural surface, but its spatialization carries a politically constitutive function.