Spatializing diversities, diversifying spaces

Housing experiences and home space perceptions in a migrant hub of Istanbul

Bibliographic Data

ID2147174
AuthorsKristen Sarah Biehl (0000-0002-4350-9515, Max Planck Institute for Political and Social Science, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume38
Issue4
Pages596-607
Publication date2015-03-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnic and Racial Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-9870 • E-ISSN: 1466-4356
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01419870.2015.980293
OpenAlexW2071441828
LanguageEN
Citations received20
References cited29

The neighbourhood of Kumkapi in Istanbul is a superdiverse space by all readings of the term. Having already been at the centre of varying migration flows for decades, its current residential population reveals substantial differences on innumerable fronts. In this article, I explore the role of space as both product and source in shaping the emergence and convergence of such multiple differences on the ground. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, I examine the historic socio-spatial transformation of Kumkapi, reflecting on the emergence of commonalities beyond ethnicity. I further suggest analysing these at a different spatial scale, moving from the neighbourhood down to the living spaces that migrants inhabit, exploring how variable differences materialize and become entangled in processes of where and how migrants access, use and relate to housing. In conclusion, I argue that superdiversity as an analytical concept carries the potential to understand new complexities in relations formed with and through space in the contemporary era.Keywords: migrationsuperdiversityspacehousinghomeneighbourhood AcknowledgementsI would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and critical comments to earlier drafts of this paper. I am also grateful to the valuable feedback provided by numerous colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, where I presented an earlier draft of this paper in a Work in Progress Seminar on 8 May 2014.FundingThis research was made possible by generous grants from the Foundation for Urban and Regional Studies (one-year studentship and six-month writing-up grant) and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (two-year doctoral fellowship).Additional informationFundingFunding: This research was made possible by generous grants from the Foundation for Urban and Regional Studies (one-year studentship and six-month writing-up grant) and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (two-year doctoral fellowship).Notes on contributorsKristen Sarah BiehlKRISTEN SARAH BIEHL is a Doctoral Student at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Centre for Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford. She is also a Fellow of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, and is currently Visiting Researcher at the Istanbul Urban Observatory of the French Institute for Anatolian Studies

Economic geography · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Migrant workers · Perception · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Urban space · Computer Science · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology · Socioeconomic Development in Asia

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