Title
Place brands, nonbrands, tags, and queries : the networks of urban activism in the creative city Istanbul
Document Type
Journal article
Source Publication
Cultural Studies
Publication Date
1-1-2014
Volume
28
Issue
3
First Page
494
Last Page
517
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Keywords
networking, urban politics, creative city, place branding, actor-network-theory, Istanbul
Abstract
This article aims for a deeper understanding of an emerging urban-political culture that interweaves digital platforms and urban spaces, institutions and the extra-institutional. It explores political possibilities and limitations of urban activism in the context of ‘creative city’ oriented policy-making in Istanbul, Turkey. My approach highlights the production of agency/disempowerment and solidarity/isolation through socio-technical networks that assemble multifarious issues of concern and care. Activist strategies in Istanbul engaged the productive tension between (1) biopolitical apparatuses introduced with ‘creative city’ governance that extract value from the creative production and cultural participation of citizens and (2) the disregard or devaluation of citizen bodies in socially exclusive processes of urban transformation. The struggle over the impoverished Romani neighbourhood Sulukule, which faced demolition, introduced a mode of urban activism consisting in the appropriation of organizational techniques and regimes of value and visibility of Istanbul's ‘creative city’ governance apparatuses. Repurposing place branding for a technique of networked self-organization and claiming brand value for the deprived neighbourhood, activist practices transfigured the place brand into the anti-brand and nonbrand as well as into tags, queries and addresses operating in digital space. This article analyses Sulukule's struggle – and its connections and disconnections to other struggles – to explore activism's potential to challenge stratifications and inequalities between people and places engendered by ‘creative city’ projects, which themselves are often implicated in exclusive urban transformation processes.
DOI
10.1080/09502386.2014.887132
Print ISSN
09502386
E-ISSN
14664348
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2014 Taylor & Francis
Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.
Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Hoyng, Rolien (2014). Place brands, nonbrands, tags, and queries: The networks of urban activism in the creative city Istanbul. Cultural Studies, 28(3), 494-517. doi: 10.1080/09502386.2014.887132
