Mapping Gendered Spaces in Karaköy
Mapping project based on observations in the Karaköy rhombus.
As a fellow from Hrant Dink Foundation I have spent 6 months at Center for Spatial Justice — Beyond Istanbul and have worked on a mapping project in Karaköy area. The method of the research was based on walking and collecting data according to certain criterias. However, this research was at the same time based on urban sociology and anthropology theories I will elaborate on further.
Reading the city: Legibility of the city (K. Lynch)
As Lynch mentions, the observer himself should play an active role in perceiving the world and have a creative part in developing his image. (S)he should have the power to change that image to fit changing needs. An environment which is ordered to precise and final detail may inhibit new patterns of activity. A landscape whose every rock tells a story may make difficult the creation of fresh stories. Although this may not seem to be a critical issue in our present urban chaos, yet it indicates that what we seek is not final but an open-ended order, capable of continuous further development.
As Lynch also suggests, the perception of images is a result of two way process between the observer and the place (or the object).
One might find an unseen, unnoticed place as not worth for attention, whereas another observer may spend a whole day researching the place.
Is Istanbul legible?
Is Istanbul legible? Can we read it? Or do we need special tools, vehicles, gadgets and equipments to read the city. Lynch suggests that nowadays for a fully equipped modern person it is almost impossible to get lost in the city. At the same time he mentions how much that modern person looses, because people have lost the ability of getting lost in the places.
I decided to follow his theory: while I drew the borders of the observation space (Sishane in the north, Karaköy port in the south, Mumhane in the West and Tersane on the East) I got fully lost in Karakoy every week to be able to understand (read) the space.
Writing the city (de Certau)
And once one has read the city, it is time to write about it.
Michele de Certau (The practice of Everyday life, 1984) says that urban spaces, narratives and subjectivities are understood as products of cities and bodies mutually writing each other.
According to de Certeau, it is specifically the walking people who bring the city to life. They do not have that god-like “all-seeing power” and are therefore trapped within the “city”s grasp”. They are at ground level and looking down, and ironically it is these people who write the “urban text” without being able to read it. More importantly to note, „it is the mass movement of people who write the text. With thousands of individuals each writing his own story and giving his own interpretation, the city is pieced together something like a patchwork quilt of individual viewpoints and opinions“.
Drawing the city: Mapping spaces
Both for “reading” and “writing” the city in the frames of this research, walk is the main and the most efficient tool.
Mapping as well as video or photo shooting in this case is one of the most effective tools. However, through mapping method it is possible to have a textual and visual information of feelings and to share it on a more individual level with the rest of users.
In behavioral geography, a mental map is a person’s point-of-view perception of their area of interaction.
“Drawing maps means visualizing correspondences and their metaphor. A map is such a powerful image that is hardly surprising that many artists, today and in the past, have used it as a tool, as a vehicle for expression and reflection, for protest and other purposes … Affective cartography is about representation of the place, therefore, it is about the acceptance of subjective data as worthy and useful data. Place — based metaphors such as personal experiences are important as evidence of the need for the representation of local spaces in affective cartography” (Iturrioz and Wachowitz, 2010). (Artistic perspective of effective cartography)
The place:
Where?
Karaköy Rhombus
The Karaköy part of my observation looks like a little piece of a delicious, authentic baklava.
When?
Dynamics of a space differ based on the time of the day, whether it is dark or light, the people, the atmosphere, the weather, the smells and the presence of every little detail may change.
During day and night the 4 conjunctions of the observation area have been drastically different both from each other and from themselves.
What do I pay attention to?
- body language of men, (yellow )
- gaze (by men), (green)
- language (explicit or not — e.g. — Hırdavatçılar carşısı (Hardware sellersi market) in the evening (once they finish the job) in comparison to the day time). (purple)
- physical contact/threat. (red)
The map below is the map I have been creating based on the walk throughout 3.5 months. According to the criteria above mentioned one can see the spots of fear, the spots of actual physical threat or an attempt, etc. Basically this map here serves as a summary of the individual mental map of mine, based solely on my own perceptions of the space.
