The Structuring of identity within the context of socio-economical relations in squatter settlements of İzmir: A specific case study on Karşıyaka-Onur and Yamanlar districts

vu ABSTRACT We currently go through an age of "change". It is not just what we have seen and experienced that has changed dramatically, but also the way we interpret and construe meaning. However, while regarding those developments, which oppress every bit and piece of our lives and are displayed as if all has been turned upside down, all as a historical turning point, it is required to consider the unchanging production relations and though in differing directions, the ever-existing polarization of center-periphery. Because these developments, which indicate that all that has been presented in new forms in fact constitute the extentions of a continuous process, help us to conceive of the "New Times" as a renamed circumstance of destruction and disintegration of the previous times. As for the circumstances conceptualized as the "new urban poverty" and as the social and spatial cleavages that strikingly are increased within the mentioned destruction and disintegration, they indicate that the socio-economical processes and all accompanying issues, which all together determine the current social and spatial structuring of cities, should be approached within a questioning manner. In this study, it is aimed to elaborate those "Identity"-based conceptualizations, which point to a recently-emerging wide field of work, within such a skeptic consideration and to discuss these conceptualizations beyond their emancipating content held out with reference to the subject, that is, in terms of their compensating role and instrumental position. Such an instrumental role is also aimed to be defined in context of the specific conditions of Turkey and the changing content of "squatter" as a similarly specific experience the country goes through and to analyze them within the framework of concrete data focused directly on a case studyVül area. By this way, the answers are sought for the questions to how and within which context such a formation that points to a problematic field in the name of a general description as the "identity crisis" in Turkey and that is put in serve of the consumption culture mostly via media, has emerged under the effect of which local conditions and how they have shaped the urban structures. Although they appear to constitute an experience Turkey has gone through simultaneously with the world for the first time, the post-1980 developments bear such characteristics that differ considerably from those of the world. With a new structuring where the undevelopment practice that tries to get internationalized first via liberal policies constructed upon a yet-unfinished modernity project, it has got stuck in between modernity and postmodernity. In this sense, the emerging practice seems to be of an experience of being caught in between, but it, at the same time, bears such a resistance that have been born out of this position of being in between. The most fundamental indicator of such a resistance are the "squatters'', which besieges the cities and within the framework of their different characteristics, which are considered in terms of exclusion-based definitions like "rear neighbourhoods" or "suburbs". As it has marked the urbanization practice of Turkey during the 1950s, within the context of both the new dynamics of urbanization and the changing conditions of migration, this formation has gone through considerable shifts and has become a crucial component of the current order of relations. Particularly through the post-1980 liberal economical policies, in other words, the new policies regarding the distribution of rent, its new position emerging within the movements experienced in urban capital market and the struggles for rent that have increasingly gained some intensity, has become further evident due to the "migration of poverty" from the Eastern and Southern-east regions of the country. By this way, those living areas of migration which have taken a central position following the destructed balances on urban scale and the increasing "urban poverty", have also gained a completely different context as the production points of new living strategies.IX Such a development, on the other hand, has had such impacts as to transform the dual urban structure that exists in the form of suburban and urban contexts into new forms of decomposition based on much different dynamics. Within this framework, whereas all sorts of decomposition that involve informal, marginal, illegal and alike contrasts lose their validity, those forms of solidarity which decompose the migration-based living areas in social and spatial levels have attained a much different context. Thus, within a context where all forms of relations have begun to be intertwined, the solidarity relations have gradually lost their characteristics based on family-relative and increasingly countryman relations and have then begun to be re-structured through the determinability of ethnic, religious or policy-based identity components. Furthermore, in course of time, the differences and decompositions in question have been transformed into such elements that have been set forth and instrumentalized through the new post-modern urban image, and therefore the culture of consumption. By this way, the cities that have found themselves totally within post-modernity, have become such structures that have been equipped with flexible identity elements, which are held out via single individual subjects, can be intertwined, can change in time and which bear a high level of diversity on one hand; those different ethnical, religious or political organizations which make instrumental use of these identity elements, or those elements of the popular culture of consumption which are in serve of the capital on the other. The city, which has gone through such a development process in the most dramatic way, has been "Istanbul". As a city that has begun to regain its regional role forgotten till titte 1980s, Istanbul has gone through an extremely acute urbanization practice with the arrival of globalized modes of consumption and all sorts of accompanying cultural flows. Embodied in polarizations on both spatial and social grounds and without any questioning, this practice has attracted those groups, who struggle to survive, into the mentioned complex and intertwined network of relations and as this practice has been set forth with such a structure that occasionallyis to cause serious resistances that are reflected on emerging conflicts, it has become the subject matter of various researches held. Nevertheless, it is not possible to generalize this specific practice for all Turkish cities and to conclude by claiming that all cities experience similar breakdowns and even conflicts. Because every city, and therefore every local environment is shaped within its own potentials and own specific conditions* no matter how severe breakdowns and conflicts one may go through within its changing conditions. Accordingly, in "Izmir", the intense levels of migration and squatter practice of the city constitutes an original case with its social and spatial mosaic that has changed with the effect of all kinds of changes and transformations Turkey has experienced in the course of time. However, different from a special case like Istanbul, it represents a rather widespread experience throughout the country and for this reason, though it is based on a particular context, it provides for such prominent hints that may aid in understanding the current structure of the migration-based living regions. Therefore, with its focus on Karşıyaka - Onur and Yamanlar districts of Izmir, this study not only analyzes a particular case area selected in terms of specifically determined criteria, but also highlights the post- 1980 urbanization practices of Turkey and therefore bears the potential to search for answers to the initially put questions.