Space, place and the historical and contemporary articulations of regional, national and European identities through work and community in areas undergoing economic restructuring and regeneration (SPHERE)

SPHERE explores themes of identity and belonging: how do such alignments and affiliations survive (or not) the socio-economic changes that accompany restructuring and the broader political and demographic remodelling of Europe’s cultural landscapes? Its multidisciplinary analysis will deepen insight into the ways life experiences are interwoven with a range of cultural practices to construct new identities; it will also address the sources and implementation of regeneration policies for notions of community. SPHERE starts from six distinctive regional identities historically rooted in specific occupational contexts around strong communities in Europe’s largest economies: France, Germany, Poland, Spain, UK and Turkey. All have undergone profound socio-economic transformations with associated Field of science /social sciences/economics and business/business and management/commerce /humanities /social sciences /social sciences/sociology/governance/public services /humanities/history and archaeology/history Programme(s) Topic(s) Call for proposal Funding Scheme CP-FP - Small or medium-scale focused research project Coordinator have undergone profound socio-economic transformations with associated challenges to cultural identities and practices. The project focuses on changes to historic regional and cultural identities where regional regeneration projects have attempted to introduce new industries or services or jobs and to create new cultural and economic landscapes. To assess the impact of Europe on the complex evolutions of community, regional and national identities, some of the regions chosen accessed or use EU regeneration funding, while others relied largely either on regional or national state subsidies or on market processes. This research will trace the transition from older to newer industries and put a strong focus on the impact this has had on cultural identities linked to work, class and gender, as well as the effects of EU or other regeneration processes on understandings of place and on people’s sense of belonging. It will probe the conditions under which new occupational, community, national and/or European identities emerge. By drawing on both the humanities and social science, it goes further and asks questions about the complex interconnections of history, place, culture and identity within households, the community and its collective organisations.EU, Funded under FP7-SSH-2007-

Workers of the Ereğli-Zonguldak coal basin, 1848-1922

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This thesis focuses on the workers in Ereğli-Zonguldak coal basin, the most important mining region in the Ottoman Empire. The operation in the basin started in 1848, and in the course of the three quarter-centuries that passed until 1922, considerable transformations in terms of technology, administrative structure, capital composition etc. have taken place in the basin. These transformations had important consequences for the working and living conditions of the workers, and towards the end of the period in question, the workers themselves emerged as innegligible actors and began to influence the developments in the basin. The thesis is basically organised around two lines of investigation. The first line is the wages of workers. The development of the wages of different categories of workers is investigated for the period of 1875-1922, for which data exists, and the period of 1905-11 and the year 1922 are paid special attention. Leaving aside the apparent erosion during the war years, it could be observed that the real wages in the basin presented a stable pattern. On the other hand, this erosion was not distributed evenly; different categories of workers were affected to different extents. The thesis also discusses the impact of the Strikes of 1908, which broke out in the basin as did throughout the empire. The cuts and deductions imposed on wages under different names are also discussed under a separate heading. The second line of investigation is the industrial accidents that have taken place in the mines. The accidents that occurred in the years 1909-10 are discussed in detail and the reactions of different people, groups and institutions including the state and the workers, to these accidents are analysed. The state’s response has been ambivalent and at times contradictory, in accordance with the nature of Ottoman state of the time and the structural and conjectural conditions in which it found itself. The response of the workers has manifested itself in strikes.Aytekin, Erden AttilaM.S

Patterns of Resilience during Socioeconomic Crises among Households in Europe (RESCuE): Concept, Objectives and Work. Packages of an EU FP 7 Project

Since 2008, Europe has been shaken by an ongoing crisis. If relevant parts of populations are exposed to socioeconomic risks, it is a distinctive characteristic of European political ethics that they must not be left alone, but should be subject to support and solidarity by budget support policy, economic development policies and social policy at different levels. But, in analogy with medical and psychological findings, some parts of the vulnerable population, although experiencing the same living conditions as others, are developing resilience, which in our context means that they perform social, economic and cultural practices and habits which protect them from suffer and harm and support sustainable patterns of coping and adaption. This resilience to socioeconomic crises at household levels is the focus of the project. It can consist of identity patterns, knowledge, family or community relations, cultural and social as well as economic practices, be they formal or informal. Welfare states, labour markets and economic policies at both macro or meso level form the context or ‘environment’ of those resilience patterns. For reasons of coping with the crisis without leaving the common ground of the implicit European social model (or the unwritten confession to the welfare state) under extremely bad monetary conditions in many countries, and for reasons of maintaining quality of life and improving social policy, it is a highly interesting perspective to learn from emergent processes of resilience development and their preconditions. Thus, the main questions are directed at understanding patterns and dimensions of resilience at micro-/household level in different types of European member and neighbour states accounting for regional varieties, relevant internal and external conditions and resources as well as influences on these patterns by social, economic or labour market policy as well as legal regulations

Patterns of Resilience during Socioeconomic Crises among Households in Europe (RESCuE)

Since 2008, Europe has been shaken by an ongoing crisis. If relevant parts of populations are exposed to socioeconomic risks, it is a distinctive characteristic of European political ethics that they must not be left alone, but should be subject to support and solidarity by budget support policy, economic development policies and social policy at different levels. But, in analogy with medical and psychological findings, some parts of the vulnerable population, although experiencing the same living conditions as others, are developing resilience, which in our context means that they perform social, economic and cultural practices and habits which protect them from suffer and harm and support sustainable patterns of coping and adaption. This resilience to socioeconomic crises at household levels is the focus of the proposed project. It can consist of identity patterns, knowledge, family or community relations, cultural and social as well as economic practices, be they formal or informal. Welfare states, labour markets and economic policies at both macro or meso level form the context or ‘environment’ of those resilience patterns. For reasons of coping with the crisis without leaving the common ground of the implicit European social model (or the unwritten confession to the welfare state) under extremely bad monetary conditions in many countries, and for reasons of maintaining quality of life and improving social policy, it is a highly interesting perspective to learn from emergent processes of resilience development and their preconditions. Thus, the main questions are directed at understanding patterns and dimensions of resilience at micro-/household level in different types of European member and neighbour states accounting for regional varieties, relevant internal and external conditions and resources as well as influences on these patterns by social, economic or labour market policy as well as legal regulations.EU, Funded under FP7-SS

Hukuk, Tarih ve Tarihyazımı: 1858 Osmanlı Arazi Kanunnamesi’ne Yönelik Yaklaşımlar

Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun ilk kapsamlı ve modern arazi kanunu olan 1858 Arazi Kanunnamesi tarihçiler ve sosyal bilimciler arasında pek çok tartışma yaratmıştır. Kanunnameye dair çalışmalar temelde iki konuya odaklanmıştır: kanunnamenin amaçları ve sonuçları. Bu makale ilkin, araştırmacıların kanunun çıkarılma amacı ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun arazi kontrolü yapısı üzerindeki somut etkilerine dair söylediklerini ele alıyor ve bazı önemli çalışmaları da ayrıca tartışıyor. Tarihyazımının eleştirisinden sonra, alternatif bir yaklaşımın temelini oluşturabilecek bazı çalışmaları değerlendiriyor. Bu makale son olarak, kanunnameye ve genel olarak Osmanlı arazi hukukuna yönelik daha verimli bir yaklaşımın oluşturulmasına katkıda bulunabilecek bazı öneriler getiriyor. Bu önerilerin bazıları şöyle: kanunnamenın sonuçlarından ziyade nedenlerine ve arkaplanına yoğunlaşmak, kanunnamedeki ve genel olarak hukuktaki hukuki kurgulara dikkat etmek, hukukun sadece içeriğini değil biçimini de ciddiye almak ve toprak sahipliği ile kullanımının önemli vechelerini oluşturan ancak kanunnamenin sessiz kaldığı noktaları da araştırmak.The Land Code of 1858, the first comprehensive and modern land law to be enacted in the Ottoman Empire, has been widely debated among historians and social scientists. The focus of the historiography on the code has been twofold: the purpose of the code and its impact. This article surveys what scholars have argued about the intended purpose of the code and its actual impact on the landholding patterns of the late Ottoman Empire. In addition, some significant works are examined in their own right. After a critique of the historiography, certain works that can form the basis of an alternative approach are discussed. Lastly, this article suggests several points that might 67 Gerber'in kendisinin bu uyarıya ne kadar uyduğu da tartışmalıdır. help construct a perspective to the code in particular and Ottoman land law in general that would overcome the problems of the historiography. The more significant ones of these suggestions are: to focus on the background rather than the consequences of the code, to pay attention to legal fictions in law, to take the form as well as the content of law seriously, and to inquire into certain aspects of landholding and land use that seem to be missing from the code as well as what it actually includes

A "Magic and Poetic" Moment of Dissensus: Aesthetics and Politics in the June 2013 (Gezi Park) Protests in Turkey

This article departs from analyses that underline the middle-class character of June 2013 (Gezi Park) protests in Turkey by focusing on the relationship between politics and aesthetics in the protest movement. The predominant form of protest in the movement was aesthetic political acts, which did not bring about any distinction based on class or cultural capital. Rather, the artistic practices and cultural symbols employed by protesters bridged gaps by bringing a large and diverse body of people around a common political position. The June protests constituted a moment of dissensus in the Rancierean sense as the shared position was based on an essential claim for equality of the demos and the demands of the anonymous to be seen, heard, counted in, and to partake. The article focuses on the role Second New Wave poetry played in the protests, as the protesters appropriated the ironic and ambiguous verses of the Second New Wave poets to create a unified movement