Urban Informality Reconsidered in a Neoliberal Context: Gecekondu, Identity, Poverty and Islamic Philanthropism in Turkey [2012]

Abstract

Under the impact of various strategies of neoliberal governance, informality has extended its space at all levels of urban politics in the last three decades in Turkey. Drawing upon a dialogue between the empirical findings of a qualitative research conducted on socio-spatial history of an Ankara gecekondu (squatter) neighbourhood and the transformed context of urban politics in the neoliberal era, this chapter attempts to trace informality in practices of state on one side and the neighbourhood community on the other. Identity policies accompanying depoliticisation policies of the post-1980 military intervention; urban entrepreneurialism/clientelism accompanying neoliberal urban land policies; and philanthropic/Islamist social assistance schemes accompanying the policies of dismantling welfare state, will be discussed with reference to their fragmentary impacts on urban poor, along socioeconomic and ethnic lines. All these dynamics as part of a neoliberal urban regime make ethnicity (sectarian identities in this particular case) relevant to poverty and deprivations of all kinds. Unlike certain approaches celebrating informality as providing tactics and spaces of existence for urban poor within the system, this chapter offers a more cautious reading of informality.