International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE)
A PLACE OF IDENTITY AND FEAR: BOUNDARIES EXPERIENCED IN A "GYPSY" QUARTER IN
ANKARA
Author(s): Emine Incirlioglu
Source: Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, [un] bounding
tradition: the tensions of borders and regions: Eighth International Conference, December
12-15, 2002 – Hong Kong: Conference Abstracts (FALL 2002), p. 25
Published by: International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41757931
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25
A PLACE OF IDENTITY AND FEAR: BOUNDARIES EXPERIENCED IN A "GYPSY" QUARTER IN ANKARA
Emine Incirlioglu
This paper explores the practices of exclusion, segregation
and conflict in Çinçin Baglari, a rigidly defined quarter in
Ankara, Turkey. This quarter has gained a reputation as an "unruly" place inhabited by lawless people, undocumented
sies," drug pushers, prostitutes, pickpockets and petty criminals. Most of the residents of the quarter live in squatter settlements.
Thus, while Çinçin Baglari is an everyday place and "home" to
hundreds of families, it has become an "other" place for the rest of Ankara's population - to the extent that most city residents feel like "foreigners" and experience fear within its boundaries.
Foucault's politicized concept of "heterotopia" (other place) is
applicable to Çinçin Baglari, where "the notion of 'other' refers to that which is both formally and socially other."
Based on surveys and observations conducted by a group of university students in 2001 and 2002, as well as interviews with municipal officials, this paper focuses on the social relations and
territorial behavior patterns that define the boundaries of Çinçin
Baglari in the absence of walls or fences. The traditions or
tural traits that are practiced within the quarter, such as fights, dogfights, pigeon competitions, self-mutilations, or the creative use of various "weapons," serve to reinforce the cultural identity of the residents in a negative way. Specifically, this paper will focus on the tensions that are created by the occasional
demolition of squatter houses and the subsequent confrontation which takes place between the police and the residents.
At a time when cosmopolitanism and global citizenship are being widely discussed, a considerable number of Çinçin Baglari
residents are not registered or documented, and thus are not izens" of the modern nation-state of Turkey. Considering the
global dispersion of "gypsies," "unbound" around the world
beyond commitment to any one nation-state, it is ironic that the boundaries of Çinçin Baglari are spatially well defined, and that they so rigidly separate its inhabitants from "outsiders."
A.3 RETHINKING HISTORIOGRAPHY
AND DISCOURSE
THE HERITAGE (IN BETWEEN): DISCOURSES OF "REGION"
AND "NATION" IN BILAD AL SHAM
Rami Daher
Jordan University of Science and Technology, Amman, Jordan
NARRATIVE BORDERS AND THE POLITICS OF NEW HISTORY
Alan Mikhail
University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.
ALTERNATIVE MODELS TO CLUSTERED CULTURES: A DISCUSSION OF PARADIGMATIC THEMES
Anne Hublin
Ecole d'Architecture, Paris Villemin, France
TROPICAL TROPES: THE POLITICS AND ECONOMICS OF
BUILT FORMS IN HOT AND HUMID CLIMATES
Chee Kien Lai
University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.
THE HERITAGE (IN BETWEEN): DISCOURSES OF "REGION"
AND "NATION" IN BILAD AL SHAM
Rami Daher
The definition of heritage and the past and their links to ty construction have always been a highly politicized, contextualized and contested process. The region of the eastern Mediterranean (locally known as Bilad al Sham) witnessed ample cultural, nomic and territorial transformations within the last couple of turies. The most significant and recent of these was the destruction and replacement of the dynastic religious realm (represented by the Ottoman Empire) first by periods of European colonialism and Mandate, then by the various postcolonial and post-Mandate states of Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine during the
first half of the twentieth century.
This paper is about inherent differences, conflicts, and solved issues regarding the definition of "the heritage in between." This is a heritage that falls between historical and cultural tions and politically and functionally constructed regions/nations. This research reexamines the contested reintroduction of a certain concept of heritage to suit the construction of a national identity. Thus, issues related to authenticity, definition of heritage, and motion of certain sites for conspicuous consumption (whether ciated with processes of late capitalism or highly politicized national agendas) are examined. Ultimately, the research will compare and contrast such investigations with the impact of latent regional and historical realities on the definition, production and transformation
