Umut Mekanlarından Kentsel Dönüşüm Alanlarına Toplumsal Hareketlilik

Abstract

Cities in Turkey have been exposed to intense migration waves depending on structural transformation taking place in agricultural since the second half of the 20th century. As a result of migration, while populations of the cities increased considerably, the cities which did not complete their industrialization period yet could not provide employment and dwelling supply in which they would dwell. Shanties which emerged as an obligatory result of this process informally became a solution for dwelling problem in the cities. This research investigates how social and economic transformation taking place in Turkey after 1950 was experienced by people living in shanties. The structural factors which served for the immigrant’s, who abandoned the rural area, transition to urban labour and the strategies which the immigrant developed in order to survive in the urban are examined together. Shanties and squatters are examined as a multidimensional result of historical and social conditions. The squatters are considered within the frame of their class positions and the struggle they got with the city is given through their own perception. The political attitude in post-migration period made shanties, which became places of hope for immigrants, permanent in the cities, making them a part of the cities. After the fact that the effort of the squatter became an indispensable part for import-substitution economic system, cheap supply of labour by the squatter became an important function for the continuity of economic system. Therefore, the places of hope arose as a kind of spatial reflection of labour. Social and cultural characteristics of the shanties such as network type relationships based on solidarity, continuity of cultural and economic relations with the rural area, gradual urbanization, determination and sacrifice, horizontal mobility (free-floating), transformation value of shanties and using educational facilities were the most important properties which distinguish shanties from poverty areas in the West and besides this, these characteristics became the fundamental dynamics through which the squatters held on to the urban and performed social mobility. In squatter’s lives, especially through the education of children, while it was seen that they performed perpendicular social movement, they got rid of perception as being the invaders of the cities through the laws enacted after 1980 and with the urban transformation, the process of building apartments have made them a part of middle class within the cities.