Capire la Turchia al di là dei Pregiudizi

Turkey's recent foreign policy orientation has both been lauded and criticized. While some analysts argue that Turkey is on the way to become a regional power through its «multi-stakeholder» foreign policies, others suggest that the country is now sliding away from its EU membership course and pro-Western policy choices towards the «Islamic» camp, especially considering the recent tension with Israel and divergence from US's policy on Iran. This article aims to provide a more balanced picture through an examination of Turkey's history of domestic politics and foreign policy

Urban markets and diversity: towards a research agenda

In this paper we advocate the study of local street markets to explore fundamental issues about the relationship between economy and society. This relationship evolves over time and we believe that it has been recast in an age of increasing cultural diversity and neo-liberal state regulatory structures. In street markets we can see how diversity and the nature of economic transactions become mutually constitutive. We argue that cultural diversity propels local markets, while everyday interactions in markets influence intercultural relationships. These complex processes are affected by the spatiality of markets and the regulatory environments within which they operate. We conclude by framing a research programme on street markets and discuss a number of methodological complications that would need to be addressed in this endeavour

Dopo la Primavera Arriva L’inverno?

This article addresses Turkey's changing role in the Middle East in this extremely volatile environment. The politics of the Middle East has been unpredictable for a long time and continued to be more so in the last few years. The bilateral and multilateral dynamics among political actors and states have changed quite quickly in the region. The current AKP government of Turkey started off with a «zero-problem with neighbors» policy in principle, but soon enough, problems arose in Turkey-Syria, Turkey-Israel and Turkey-Iran relations

Constructions of Spaces of Music in Istanbul: Scuffling and Intermingling Sounds in a Fragmented Metropolis

Superimposed on a highly heterogeneous social texture further shaped by successive waves of in-migration, Istanbul’s urban policy shifted from a state-centered to a more entrepreneurial approach since the mid-1980s. Concurrently, as the contestation of the urban space became more strident, the interplay of the facets of political, economic and cultural/symbolic change created interesting configurations and constellations. In a parallel development, since the urban identities in Istanbul turned more fragmented and hybrid from the mid-1980s, the cultural/symbolic struggle to define the urban space also translated into myriad particular ways in which the urban musical places are thought of, imagined, and experienced.Various musical styles stemming from (and frequently combining elements of both) rural and urban backdrops (such as Arabesk, Taverna, Fantezi, and Turkish pop), as well as numerous "engagé" forms of popular music (left-wing, far-nationalist, and Islamist variants of "Özgün Müzik"), and global and localized global forms (rock, blues, jazz, hip-hop, salsa, techno, and any combination of those thereof) blossomed, creating spaces, locations and establishments where these kinds of music could be heard, and turned Istanbul’s streets into a symbolic battleground.This paper attempts to comprehend the parameters of this cultural-symbolic contestation from within a historical and spatial perspective, and connect those to a more general discussion on the links between sounds, social construction of space and the city identities. This way, we strive to move beyond the facile dichotomies of the traditional versus the modern; the local versus the global, essentializing notions usually deployed while studying the non-western societies such as Turkey. We argue for the existence of more fluid, complex and interconnected forms such as the localization of modernity (Smith and Bender, 2001) and the localization of the global (or "glocalization" à la R. Robertson). Also, we argue that the constructions of spaces of music need to be thought of in relation to the symbolic acts of inclusion and exclusion.Les espaces musicaux d’Istanbul mettent en évidence la richesse d’une structure sociale hétérogène liée à des vagues successives de migration et à la fragmentation croissante issue de la mondialisation. Istanbul est un pont entre l’Est et l’Ouest mais aussi une marge que divers groupes - des modernistes aux islamistes - tentent de contrôler, transformant la rue en champ de bataille symbolique. Des styles musicaux variés provenant de la ville et de la campagne - et les combinant souvent - (arabesk et taverna - liés à la contestation des années 1960 dans les gecekondus, qui chantent la pauvreté des déracinés - fantezi et pop turque), des formes "engagées" de musique populaire (d’extrême gauche, nationalistes, voire islamistes), tout comme des formes globales revisitées localement (rock, jazz, hip-hop, salsa, techno etc.) ont créé des lieux d’écoute et de conflit. L’étude des liens entre sons, construction sociale de l’espace et identités urbaines permet de dépasser les oppositions faciles (traditionnel/ moderne, local/global) inadaptées à un pays non-occidental comme la Turquie. Les processus de "glocalisation" y sont plus fluides, complexes et interconnectés, et n’ont pas conduit à une homogénéisation culturelle car la musique s’est adaptée et remodelée localement. Le quartier de Péra/Beyoglu est l’exemple de cette progressive transformation, depuis l’occidentalisation du XIXe s., puis la volonté de la jeune République de créer un nouveau citoyen laïque dans le nouvel État-Nation, jusqu’au rôle de vitrine moderniste des régimes militaires néo-libéraux que joue la ville depuis les années 1980. Istanbul se fragmente et s’hybride et Beyoglu est devenu une constellation d’hétérotopies foucaldiennes juxtaposant en un même lieu des paysages musicaux incompatibles mais qui fonctionnent en relation à l’espace. Exclusion et ségrégation n’y ont donc pas disparu