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Istanbul
Fragmentation and Change in Space and in Belonging in Districts of Istanbul:
An Oral History Documentation Study
Aynur Glyasoglu, Gülay Kayacan, Ebru Soytemel

Abstract:
This paper will focus on the interaction between and the mutual enrichment of method and field-work experience based on the outcomes and the assesment of the ongoing research on four districts of Istanbul in the context overall drastic changes of the last fifty years that affected the city and the society as a whole. This field research has been carried on by Oral History and Local History Programme at Tarih Vakfi as a partner of Mediterranean Voices project on the documentation of oral testimonies and of varying cultural practices of communities of the basin. What we mainly focus here on two essential phases: first of them, is that to trace the distinct transformation of Istanbul -which became dense during the last fifty years- through the processes of industrialization, modernization, urban transformation, migration and cultural change by the help of oral testimonies documenting change. We carry our study in four specific districts of Istanbul, namely Arnavutköy, Gaziosmanpa*a (GOP), Moda and Fatih.

In studying these local communities and cultures, oral history documentation research helps us to look in depth at the social and cultural fabric and its transformation, the divergences that delineate the heterogeneous structure within the social and local entity that is under study. Living in a city, in a town or in a district means to live in a multi-layered, multi-cultured and stratified habitus which is an arena of various social and cultural identity formations of different origins. In studying such a diversified locality, oral history work enables us to see the different human experiences and life patterns embodied within this heterogeneous structure alongside the different perceptions generated by the inhabitants. It also makes us aware of the misleading references to a "common, unified and glorious" past for all the inhabitants in a locality and of nostalgia for the past characterized by the "good old times". By doing local oral history research, it is possible to trace out different narrations related to the near history even from the narratives of the neighbours living next door for years. As cultural/social entity is multi-layered in nature, so is its articulation on the spatial, local sphere. In accordance, the method to be implemented should have the capacity to reach and reveal this complex, multi-layered and multi-sided fabric under investigation, at the same time revealing the knowledge and experience of the actors involved in a larger spectrum.

In order to elaborate our argumentation analytically on the research data we produce, in this paper, we will focus mostly on two of these disticts, GOP and Moda, with specific attention to the interacting dynamics of change in the spatial/local and in identity formations of inhabitants. In the case of GOP, survival in Istanbul usually meant getting an illegitimate actual share from the land and built a modest shelter, a house on it. This has been practiced by different in-migrating groups settled in GOP, whether from Balkan origin or Anatolian. The area has also been characterized with the proliferation of small and medium size industrial workshops (later some developed into factories). Noneheless, different communities survived through in-group solidarity networks and continued to live side by side. GOP in some respects has carried on this segmented nature so far as some inhabitants, mostly women, living in GOP, have not yet commuted to any other parts of Istanbul. Although women and youngsters have contributed to this survival enterprise in many ways including working in the construction of houses and as wage workers, they usually hardly appear as urbanites and poorly appear in stories of success and survival. While identity configurations in GOP illustrate instances from the history of this survival years, in urban historic, prospereous Moda district, narratives imply that for the newcomers, integrating and acquiring to Moda seems through adopting the etiquette of eliteness and the life sytle of urban distinction peculiar to Moda.

Oral history documentation we have gathered seems to substantiate us to reveal the multi-faceted life experiences how change brings out different patterns in terms of gender, survival efforts, identity formations in coopting life options and contingencies in urbanization. This paper will attempt to deliniate such diversified instances and experiences of various groups in a multi-layered, multi-cultured and stratified habitus through comparing and contrasting by utilizing narratives of the source people gathered in field work.

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