We are the people of Istanbul, we reclaim our city! To unite, to get organized and to say “Isatnbul is ours,” we are meeting in Kadikoy on December 22! Those craving for money and power have, by means of their political power and their local authorities, commoditized İstanbul and put on sale its neighborhoods, public squares, forests, its history and [...] → Read the full article…
What made Gezi Experience particularly striking is that through the commoning of Taksim (that is, its ‘enclosure’ against the state), and collective production of space, people were already actively producing a different kind of urban life. The Gezi struggle therefore was not simply about the conservation of an existing commons, but the defense – through production – of a future urban commons. [...] → Read the full article…
It has been more than four decades since Henri Lefebvre, Marxist philosopher and theorist of socio-spatial processes, presciently argued that the globalization of urbanization and the role of distinctively urban processes in the accumulation of capital were bringing about a specifically urban crisis that could not easily be subsumed under the crisis of industrial capitalism. This led Lefebvre to highlight [...] → Read the full article…
It is with alarming regularity that I read coverage of the protests and ensuing police brutality that erupted in Gezi Park and Taksim Square, Istanbul that emphatically insists that the confrontations are about “so much more than a park.” Reassuring their readers that the protests are not about something as silly or simple as the defense of a small park [...] → Read the full article…