In Turkey, since the middle of the 1940s, gecekondu (squatter) settlements have emerged in an urban context characterised by rapid rural-to-urban migration, inefficient administrative structures and intense land speculation. Today, some practices of the early gecekondu are still in use, while its dwellers have introduced new strategies to avoid demolition, get access to infrastructure and achieve legalisation. Recent gecekondu builders by-pass planning authorities by adopting tools of formal planning. At the same time local authorities bend their own rules and tend to tolerate informalities.

Research study of living conditions in three urban area slum human settlements in Turkey, serving as the basis for an examination of the economic implications and social implications of rural migration - includes the historical background of internal migration, and examines social integration, family and community relations, political participation in the new settlements and relations with the village of origin, etc. Bibliography pp. 272 to 284, references and statistical tables.

Gecekondu settlements-or shanty towns-in large Turkish cities are mostly populated by low-income families, many of which have migrated from the villages of Central Anatolia. The rise of the Islamist party AKP in the 1990s and 2000s had a large impact on how these gecekondus are examined, and how they are perceived to reflect key issues at play in Turkish society: welfare, local identity, religious communities and the rise of civil society. Having lived in one of these neighbourhoods in Ankara, Burcu ?enturk's book sheds light on the experience of gecekondu dwelling in Turkey. By focusing on this aspect, she brings to the fore issues such as urbanisation, modernisation and development, as well as examining the impact these kinds of phenomena have on generation gaps and the role of women in Turkish society. By using the framework of the experience of three generations of gecekondu dwellers, ?enturk is able to chart the emergence, development and the gradual breakdown of social relations, and how the dynamics of these have changed during the course of the latter half of the twentieth century."

This book aims to expose an alternative local historical reading of the formation of a gecekondu space, a settlement of irregularly self-constructed habitats built by former peasants randomly over night. The social construction of the neighborhood space is narrated by means of insider perspectives and using qualitative techniques. In this reading, it will be made explicit that the dynamics of strategic interventions in local space, and tactical acts of the migrants in producing their locality are intertwined processes. The ethnic identities through sectarian and hometown affiliations have constituted the main means by which the migrants have developed certain tactics in dealing with the strategical acts on the vertical level (relations with the actors of urban planning and local politics) and other tactical acts on the horizontal level (relations with other sectarian and hometown groups in the locality).

Presents a cross-section of sociological case studies concerning work and occupation Turkey, where a rapidly changing society is changing the structure of work and of people's lives, particularly in urban areas. It takes into account recent developments in the country, the growth of a large informal sector, the emergence of an industrial working class, and the declining economic and social position of state employees. A distinctive feature of the book is the direct quotations from a wide cross-section of workers including shoe-shine boys and others in the informal sector, as well as coal miners, metal workers, school teachers, and small businessmen. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In contemporary Turkey—a democratic, secular, and predominantly Muslim nation—the religious healer is a controversial figure. Attracting widespread condemnation, religious healers are derided as exploiters of the sick and vulnerable, discredited forms of Islamic and medical authority, and superstitious relics of a pre-modern era. Yet all sorts of people, and not just the desperately ill, continue to seek them out. After years of research with healers and their patients in working-class neighborhoods of urban Turkey, anthropologist Christopher Dole concludes that the religious healer should be regarded not as an exception to Turkey's secular modern development but as one of its defining figures. Healing Secular Life demonstrates that religious healing and secularism in fact have a set of common stakes in the ordering of lives and the remaking of worlds. Linking the history of medical reforms and scientific literacy campaigns to contemporary efforts of Qur'anic healers to treat people afflicted by spirits and living saints through whom deceased political leaders speak, Healing Secular Life approaches stories of healing and being healed as settings for examining the everyday social intimacies of secular political rule. This ethnography of loss, care, and politics reveals not only that the authority of the religious healer is deeply embedded within the history of secular modern reform in Turkey but also that personal narratives of suffering and affliction are inseparable from the story of a nation seeking to recover from the violence of its own secular past.

Bringing together an interdisciplinary and international group of researchers working on a wide variety of cities throughout Asia, Latin America and Europe, this book addresses, rethinks and, in some cases, abandons the notions of formal and informal urbanism. This collection critically interrogates both the ways in which 'informal' and 'formal' are put to work in the governing and politicisation of cities, and their conceptual strengths and weaknesses. It does so by focusing on a wide variety of topics, from specific forms of housing and labour often traditionally linked to the formal/informal divide, to urban political negotiations, cultural practices, and ways of being in the city. The book takes stock of and reflects on how contemporary urban informality/formality relations are being produced and are/might be understood, and puts forward an enlarged and comprehensive understanding of urban informality.

This volume provides a comprehensive survey of the contemporary study of Islamic law and a critical analysis of its deficiencies. Written by outstanding senior and emerging scholars in their fields, it offers an innovative historiographical examination of the field of Islamic law and an ideal introduction to key personalities and concepts. While capturing the state of contemporary Islamic legal studies by chronicling how far the field has come, the Handbook also explains why certain debates recur and indicates fundamental gaps in our knowledge. Each chapter presents bold new avenues for research and will help readers appreciate the contested nature of key concepts and topics in Islamic law. This Handbook will be a major reference work for scholars and students of Islam and Islamic law for years to come.

Cities are not only places that house buildings; they are also spaces where cultural and social relations are built and developed. These properties must be taken into consideration when constructing and renovating new housing. Different methodologies can be used in order to create new flexible solutions for mass housing units’ interior spaces with the aim of improving their adaptability by using a user-centered approach. Re-Coding Homes Through Flexible Interiors: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an optimal resource that investigates how interior design models can transform existing spaces into more flexible and functional housing units while also increasing the functional value and spatial quality of living spaces in social housing. The book specifically discusses how genetic algorithms, a generative design approach, are used to solve nonlinear design problems. It also provides results that can be referenced based on actual domain data, which can be used as references to other architectural and interior design approaches. Featuring research on topics such as housing design and mass housing, this book is ideally designed for architects, engineers, interior designers, furniture designers, construction companies, architecture firms, practitioners, academicians, students, and researchers.

A selection of papers from the proceedings of the Third OIKONET Conference is contained in this book. OIKONET is a European project co-funded by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) with the purpose of studying contemporary housing from a multidisciplinary and global perspective by encompassing the multiple dimensions which condition the forms of dwelling in today’s societies: architectural, urban, environmental, economic, cultural and social. Following on from the first two OIKONET conferences held respectively in Barcelona, Spain in 2014 and Bratislava, Slovakia in 2015, the third conference took place in Manchester, the UK in 2016. Providing a valuable resource for students, lecturers, researchers and others with an interest in housing studies, the papers included in this book cover three themes, namely sustainability of housing environments, innovation in housing design and planning, and participation in housing design and construction.