CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland

In Between Spaces: Mapping Cultural Geographies of Istanbul

Organiser: Süheyla Kýrca

Türkoglu, Nurcay (Marmara University, Turkey) ISTANBUL: UNREFINED BUT STILL EXISTS
It is the communication process that allows a city to survive in time. Any kind of human settlement disappears with the lack of communication (between nature, human beings and artifacts) among its settlers. Istanbul is a typical city of the scenes of hybridisation; it carries the cultures of societies through time and space like a river ground. The water changes any moment with the elements of soil, living, wounded and dead organisms, any time it tries to conserve its own characteristics there is the threat of the disappearance of the river. Every attempt to submit any kind of refined identity to the city is convicted to fail. In this paper I will try to examine how Istanbul survives with its "unrefined but still existing" faces with the examples of combining different layers of cultures (ethnic, religious, economical, etc.) with the help of theoretical search for dynamic definitions of the city and communication process to survive.

Tül Akbal Süalp, Zeynep (Yeditepe University, Turkey) THE FOURTH LOOK IN THE THIRD SPACE
Istanbul produces, reproduces all diverse forms, embraces all kind of "looks" of her habitants, and holds both trespasses and smooth transgresses in between actual, cognitive and virtual borders, where all "looks" are multiplied. I will try to find the flesh and stones of morphing, temporal and spatial relationship of meetings we experience and inhabit. Beyoglu, which has been the cultural center for centuries, will be the area of study. Like Chinese boxes, each street joined to that avenue opens its unseen gates to another heteroglossia. I would like to see whether Beyoglu stands for the tower of Babylon or is a hope for the fourth look and dialogic encounter, or offers a terminal for passengers, or whether all of them coexist simultaneously. Focusing on limited number of cognitive maps of habitants, I would like to see whether we can talk about the third space and can gain a matching fourth look back on us.

Öztürk, Zarife (Yeditepe University, Turkey) MIGRATION TO ISTANBUL IN THE 60'S, AS SEEN IN TURKISH FILMS
Film is like a mirror in which life reflects and sometimes the best way to see one's self is to look in the mirror. Between the years 1950 and 1960, Turkey experienced an annual growth rate of 2.8 percent. This, in turn, caused a widespread urban migration. Turkish film underwent a change that reflected the societal changes occuring at that time. Stories of people who left their villages and towns to go to Istanbul, "a city where the streets are paved with gold" started being told in Turkish films after 1960. Istanbul was like a magnet attracting migrants; thus it was the city where the stories were told, the films were made. Istanbul had been shown as a utopic city in early Turkish cinema, upto 1950. What was the city like in the films after 1960? Who came to Istanbul? What were the reasons for them to decide to move their homes and thus their lives? What was Istanbul like then and what did these people face in the "Big City?" These are some of the questions I will try to address in my paper.

Yanýkkaya, Berrin (Yeditepe University, Turkey) 'SUPER GIRLS DON'T CRY'*: A VIEW ON A NEW GENERATION OF WOMEN ON A NEW STAGE
Starting with the 1990s the cultural life in the city of Istanbul has been through some implicit and explicit transformations especially for women who take an actual part in the cultural productions. This paper aims to explore the new generation of women singers, who perform on a rather marginalized area of music in Turkish context, namely pop-rock, which seems as an already engendered and gendered space of cultural productions. The artists who have some specific qualities, when combined altogether draw an interesting crossroad of temporal and spatial charactestics, along with the social components such as age, education, social status and social position in Turkish society. The interplay between the production and product processes; the opportunities of distribution and access; the ways of representation and performance of the female pop-rock singers in Istanbul will be examined in textual, contextual and intertextual levels. * Reamonn, Album: Tuesday (2000 release), 'Super Girl'

Kirca, Süheyla (Bahcesehir University, Turkey) POLITICS OF ENTERTAINMENT CULTURE IN ISTANBUL AND ITS INTERACTION WITH GLOBAL NETWORKS
Cultures today are extremely interconnected and entangled with each other, reflecting the process of globalization. The new forms of cultural entanglement are consequences of transmission of cultural objects and ideas through mass media and communication technologies across cultures as well as complexity of criss-crossing flows of people, capital and trade. Thus lifestyles and identities are constituted within a multitude of intracultural and global networks. The interactions of these networks create a new network of 'global spaces' within the interstice of metropolitan life across continents. This paper focuses on one of these 'global spaces', that is the recent development of entertainment culture, more specifically the bar and club culture in a metropolitan city, Istanbul. The emerging of the transcultural entertainment locations and cultures has played a significant role in articulating organization of social power in everyday life in Istanbul. I will concentrate on Beyoglu, which has been a cultural center for centuries (at present it is comparable to Soho in London, or Village in New York), to discuss the following questions: What kinds of symbolic elements from global discourses of consumerism and forms of contemporary music cultures are imported and appropriated by various groups? What are the driving forces for the creation of new places and formation of new cultural identities? By concentrating on some specific places, I will examine their organizational politics and their relation with the global music networks.