Mine Eder

Turkey’s Neoliberal Transformation and Changing Migration Regime: The Case of Female Migrant Workers

Based on a series of interviews with undocumented, irregular female migrant workers at different sites in Istanbul, this chapter maps out the layers of vulnerability faced by female migrant workers in Turkey2 In line with the feminization of global migratory flows, Turkey received increasing numbers of irregular female migrants throughout the 1990s, mostly from the post-Soviet world. These women found jobs in precarious informal labour markets as domestic caregivers, cleaners, shop clerks and sex workers. The neoliberal economic transformation that the country has undergone since the 1980s has added fresh levels of economic fragility, volatility and what I have termed the ‘violence of uncertainty’ for these migrants. Another aspect of this violence of uncertainty is that Turkey, despite certain regularization strategies and the establishment of a new Immigration Office, has begun to securitize its borders, making it harder for these women to move back and forth, and leading to an increased criminalization of their status. The arbitrariness and uncertainty embedded in migrants’ encounters with state officials constitute yet another level of vulnerability, forcing them to live on the edge of constantly changing borders of regularity and irregularity. The ‘wanted, but not welcome status’ of these women in the absence of any integrative measures, and the combined effect of existing legal, economic and cultural pressures in the country, have led to a deep sense of exclusion.

Scrutinizing the Link between Poverty and Business Strategy: What Can We Learn from the Case of Shuttle Traders in Laleli, Istanbul?

The literature on strategy has long been silent as regards the possible link between poverty and business strategy, and the subject matter has only recently begun to attract attention in this particular line of thinking. The main debate shaping this newly emerging literature (e.g., Rankin 2001; Prahalad 2005) seems to revolve around one basic idea, which advocates that a long-term solution to the problem could be attained if the poor become active participants in business life. Accordingly, the discipline of strategic management should help in this endeavor by working on ways to transform the poor into consumers and/or into producers/entrepreneurs. This argument is, in fact, not new in the broader literature on poverty, and the responses to this stream of thought range from those emphasizing the possibility that there might be instances in which such an approach might or might not work (thus there is a need to conduct ethnographically informed studies), to those severely criticizing the idea on both ideological and substantive grounds (Blowfield 2005; Darrell 2005; Walsh, Kress, and Beyerchen 2005).

‘Problem Spaces’ and Struggles Over the Right to the City: Challenges of Living Differentially in a Gentrifying Istanbul Neighborhood: ‘PROBLEM SPACES’ AND STRUGGLES OVER THE RIGHT TO THE CITY

Focusing on everyday life and the dynamics of contestations between very different groups thrown together in dangerous proximity in a neighborhood of Istanbul called Tophane, this article contributes to debates on urban transformation, political aspects of gentrification and the right to the city, with a focus on how to live differentially. Amidst rising political tensions and polarization in Turkey, competing economic interests, gentrification pressures and/or ultimate clashes over norms and values have fueled these contestations, which have degenerated into violent encounters. Calling for a re‐evaluation of ‘the right to the city’, we argue that, unless the concept of right to the city is complemented by a commitment to live differentially—that is, by a right to difference—mediating and addressing these contestations will be difficult. Whether clashes over the right to the city and everyday encounters can lead to a new politics committed to resisting urban transformation that pushes the boundaries of urban citizenship, or whether these uncomfortable encounters will continue to escalate, with one group claiming hegemony over space until the neighborhood is finally and fully gentrified, remains very uncertain. But it will, ultimately, be the litmus test of the countrys democracy and inclusive citizenship.