Gendering the Gecekondu: Spatial Dichotomies, Domestic Violence and the Need for Cultural Ownership

Gendering the Gecekondu: Spatial Dichotomies, Domestic Violence and the Need for Cultural Ownership in Istanbul

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Essay 3: Pilot Thesis Eloise Piper Newnham College, Cambridge

Gendering the Gecekondu: Spatial Dichotomies, Domestic Violence and the Need for Cultural Ownership in Istanbul

A design thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the M.Phil. in Architectural and Urban Design 2020-2022

With Thanks to: My supervisor: Irit Katz My design tutors: Julika Gittner and Ingrid Schröder

4998 words, excluding bibliography, table of contents and list of illustrations.

All illustrations by author, unless otherwise stated.

This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text.

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Table of Contents

3 Introduction 9

Literature Review

13

Part One: Blurring Boundaries in Gecekondus

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Part Two: Constructing Borders in TOKI Towers

23

Part Three: Alternative Forms of Ownership

27

Methodology and Design

31 Conclusion 33

List of Illustrations

34 Bibliography

3 I nt r odu c t i on

In Turkey, a shocking 38% of women aged between 15-59 experience intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime.1 However, Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul Convention (an international accord intended to prevent and combat violence against women and domestic violence) on 19th March 2021. Inevitably, the threat of male violence in Turkey makes women’s freedom in both the private and public realms conditional. The impact of physical space on the experience of gender-based violence is a long-standing site of investigation for feminist designers. Of relevance, is Bina Agarwal’s research on domestic violence and women’s property ownership in South Asia.

The literature reveals that not only does property ownership act as a ‘tangible exit option’ for victims of domestic violence,2 but also, property access can play a crucial preventive role and deter violence.3 While important, most interventions into domestic violence, such as women’s shelters and legal aid, are ‘after the fact’.4 It is imperative to understand that economic instability exacerbates dangerous conditions.5 This plays out most acutely in housing and private property through the collective effect of socioeconomic struggles and masculinity.6 Therefore, this study investigates gendered conditions of residential property in Istanbul. The subject residential properties are two housing typologies; self-built squatter houses and apartment towers, in the once peripheral now urbanised, neighbourhood of Başıbüyük in Maltepe (Figs.1-2).

Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies, Ministry of Family and Social Policies, ‘Research on Domestic Violence against Women in Turkey’ (2015) <http://www.hips.hacettepe.edu.tr/eng/english_main_report.pdf> [accessed 7 March 2021] (p. 123).

2 Bina Agarwal and Pradeep Panda, ‘Toward Freedom from Domestic Violence: The Neglected Obvious’, Journal of Human Development, 8.3 (2007), 359–88 <https://doi.org/10.1080/14649880701462171> (p. 366).

3 Ibid, p. 380.

4 Ibid, p. 380.

5 Meltem Ince Yenlilmez and M. H. Demir, 'The Challenge of Femicide and Violence Against Women in Turkey', IJCEAS, 6.1-2 (2016), 1-30 (p. 7).

6 Tahire Erman and Burcu Hatiboğlu, ‘Rendering Responsible, Provoking Desire: Women and Home in Squatter/Slum Renewal Projects in the Turkish Context’, Gender, Place & Culture, 24.9 (2017), 1283– 1302 <https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1382448> (p. 1298).

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4 Başıbüyük makes a particularly relevant example when examining the gendered implications of urban renewal of Istanbul’s informal settlements. Under governmental Urban Transformation Projects (UTP hereafter), gecekondu7 districts were demolished across Istanbul (Fig.3). Gecekondus are self-built, squatters’ houses that manifested in response to large-scale rural migration in the 1970-80s and Istanbul’s rapid industrialisation.8 Today however, gecekondu land is valuable to the government. Hence, in the aftermath of the 2001 economic crisis and the election of the AKP Party, Turkey initiated legal reforms to implement UTPs and realise the potential of the private real estate sector.9 Furthermore, the

de facto and complex ownership structures in gecekondus create indistinct public and private property boundaries. Thus, the weak legal position of the inhabitants makes informal settlements a target for UTPs.10

The state’s powerful

manipulation of ambiguous laws and ownership definitions saw demolition of

gecekondus and displacement of their residents to apartment towers built by the housing developer TOKI.11 In contrast to gecekondus, TOKI apartments follow a strict, neoliberal division between public and private property ownership.12 This is reflective of neoliberal urban renewal that extends market logic across social and economic life; achieved by a legal system which protects and creates private property.13 The contrasting ownership between gecekondus and TOKI apartments spatially manifests through the gendered cultures of women. Furthermore, the implications of property and domestic violence disproportionately affect poorer women. Indeed, one study found that a staggering number of 62.8% of women in

Gecekondu in Turkish literally means ‘built overnight’.

John Lovering and Hade Türkmen, ‘Bulldozer Neo-Liberalism in Istanbul: The State-Led Construction of Property Markets, and the Displacement of the Urban Poor’, International Planning Studies, 16.1 (2011), 73–96<https://doi.org/10.1080/13563475.2011.552477> (p. 80).

9 Tuna Kuyucu, ‘Law, Property and Ambiguity: The Uses and Abuses of Legal Ambiguity in Remaking Istanbul’s Informal Settlements’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38.2 (2014), 609–27 <https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12026> (p. 612).

10 Binnur Oktem Unsal, ‘State-Led Urban Regeneration in Istanbul: Power Struggles between Interest Groups and Poor Communities’, Housing Studies, 30.8 (2015), 1299–1316 <https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2015.1021765> (p. 1310).

11 TOKI: Republic of Turkey Prime Ministry Housing Development Administration.

12 Lovering and Türkmen, p. 78.

13 Kuyucu, p. 610.

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5 a gecekondu district experienced domestic violence.14 Consequently, following a literature review, the pilot thesis is structured on three research questions: 1. How do women reconfigure a public-private property division?

2. How does a distinct public-private property ownership model affect the lives of women and domestic violence?

3. What is the role of design in alternative forms of ownership?

The thesis will accordingly argue for alternative modes of ownership through design in Istanbul’s UTPs. The argument offers a distinct contribution to knowledge through addressing the spatial, socioeconomic and cultural implications of property ownership and domestic violence in gecekondus.

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Yılda Aba and Güliz Onat, ‘Domestic Violence in Turkish Migrant Women’, Fırat Saglık Hizmetleri

Dergisi, 7 (2012), 33–46 (p. 39).

6 Figure 1: Google Earth, Maltepe, 2021

Figure 1: Google Earth, Maltepe, 2021 Figure 2: Google Earth, Başıbüyük, 2021

Figure 2: Google Earth, Başıbüyük, 2021

Figure 3: Yaşar Adanalı, Forced Evictions from Settlements in Istanbul, 2009

9 Li t e r at u r e r e v i e w

The research questions intend to contribute to feminist, legal geography and design research scholarship. Drawing these fields together provide creative possibilities for architectural interventions. However, in order to unpack the public-private division in property, it is firstly necessary to contextualise the public-private dichotomy in feminist theory to understand how this notion underpins women’s experience of space. Secondly, the review will consult literature on legal geography and informal settlements to understand how publicprivate divisions arise from property ownership. Finally, literature on gender and property will be referenced in order to identify gaps in knowledge that this thesis seeks to fill.

The Public-Private Dichotomy Feminist literature denotes that the public-private dichotomy is integral to a woman’s experience in the city because of the assumption that the home is the domain of women, and the public realm is the domain of men.15 Selder Tuncer argues the assumption, ‘deeply rooted in patriarchal culture, is central to the women’s access and experience of public space’.16 Consequently, feminists contest women’s marginality in the political realm and challenge the boundary itself.17 The challenge of the dichotomy is relevant to understanding how women reconfigure and challenge a public-private property division in gecekondus.

In Turkey, the public-private dichotomy is complicated by other dichotomies, such as the secular-religious divide. Indeed, Kathrin Wildner argues that Islamic women’s behaviours and dress, such as the veil, spatially represent the supposed

Linda McDowell and Rosemary Pringle, Defining Women: Social Institutions and Gender Divisions (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), p. 3.

16 Selda Tuncer, ‘Going Public: Women’s Narratives of Everyday Gendered Violence in Modern Turkey’, in International Conference on Knowledge and Politics in Gender and Women’s Studies, (Ankara: Middle East Technical University, 2015), 904-913 (p. 912).

17 McDowell and Pringle, p. 4.

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10 public-private distinction.18 Nevertheless, Anna Secor reveals women’s spatial limitations in political spaces through Secularism, exemplifying how women used to unveil in courts.19 These studies demonstrate the intersecting and nuanced conditions of gendered, spatial experience.

The public-private dichotomy also informs the experience of male violence and abuse of women in the city. Leslie Kern posits that constant threat of violence or harassment ‘shapes women’s urban lives in countless conscious and unconscious ways’.20 Tuncer examines this narrative in Turkey, arguing violence controls women’s relationship with public space.21 Critically, Kern identifies the notion that ‘public and design interventions rarely address private violence’ due to the perceived and simplified separation of the public and private. 22 Indeed, this simplification is present when analysing ownership structures, as discussed below.

Property Ownership TOKI’s housing policies can be contextualised within the public-private dichotomy and legal geography. TOKI’s solution of supposedly affordable, mortgage-based housing aligns with the ‘neoliberal ideal of a society where private ownership is extended to all spheres of social life, most fundamentally to housing, health care and social security’.23 This ideal is underpinned by Joseph Singer’s ownership model, which is the dominant property model in capitalist

Kathrin Wildner, ‘Introduction: Spaces of Everyday Life’, in Public Istanbul: Spaces and Spheres of the Urban, ed. by Frank Eckardt, Kathrin Wildner, pp. 209-214, (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2008), p.

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212.

19 Anna J. Secor, ‘The Veil and Urban Space in Istanbul: Women’s Dress, Mobility and Islamic Knowledge’, Gender, Place & Culture, 9.1 (2002), 5–22 <https://doi.org/10.1080/09663690120115010> (p. 9).

20 Leslie Kern, Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World (Brooklyn: Verso, 2020), p. 9.

21 Tuncer, p. 912.

22 Kern, p. 160.

23 Ozan Karaman, ‘Urban Renewal in Istanbul: Reconfigured Spaces, Robotic Lives’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37.2 (2013), 715–33 <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14682427.2012.01163.x> (p. 730).

11 societies.24 In this model, the owner is central and holds all the property’s rights.25 Private property rights, in particular, are seen as securely finite and trumping collective rights.26 Furthermore, this model spatially results in demarcated boundaries between the public and private. However, Nicholas Simcik Arese’s work reveals the limitations to a simplified boundary between private and public property; exemplifying how squatters in Cairo’s gated suburbs contest property norms through productive use of land.27 Arese argues that the ownership model normalises private property’s own morality and affirmation.28 Thus, ‘institutions use the concept of informality to conveniently dismiss everything that does not conform to the single-owner property model’.29 This argument is relevant to

gecekondus because definitions of formality are used to implement neoliberal renewal of gecekondus on assumed virtues of formalization,30 which as this thesis will argue disproportionately affects women.

Gender and Property It is important to study contested property ownership in gecekondus because of the increasing presence of violence as a result of neighbourhood-scale poverty.

Substantial literature establishes that women living in poorer households are at higher risk of experiencing violence than better-off households, with variables including age, low-education level, religious marriage, living in a gecekondu31 and property owned.32 However, what needs to be expanded upon is how variables such as living in a gecekondu or owning property affects the prevalence of domestic violence.

24 Nicholas Blomley, Unsettling the City: Urban Land and the Politics of Property (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 3.

25 Nicholas Simcik Arese, ‘Urbanism as Craft: Practicing Informality and Property in Cairo’s Gated Suburbs, from Theft to Virtue’, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 108.3 (2018), 620–37 <https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2017.1386541> (p. 632).

26 Blomley, p. 3.

27 Arese, p. 631 28 Arese, p. 632 29 Ibid, p. 633.

30 Kuyucu, p. 614.

31 Aba and Onat, p. 34.

32 Kader Tekkas Kerman and Patricia Betrus, ‘Violence Against Women in Turkey: A Social Ecological Framework of Determinants and Prevention Strategies’, Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 21.3 (2018), 510–26 <https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838018781104> (p. 516).

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Numerous studies identify the issues of property acquisition for women in Turkey. O’Neil and Toktaş observe that despite equal inheritance being guaranteed under Turkey’s Civil Law of 2002,33 92% of immovable property is owned by men34 and only 20% of women own some type of property.35 Whilst O’Neil and Toktaş highlight the importance of Agarwal’s research on how property ownership prevents domestic violence,36 the literature does not expand upon this discovery. Thus, the gap of knowledge lies in how contested property ownership affects women and domestic violence.

33 Mary O’Neil and Şule Toktaş, ‘Women’s Access to Property: A Comparative Study on Islamic and Kemalist Women in Turkey’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 30.3 (2017), 674-696 <https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12154> (p. 676).

34 Mary Lou O’Neil and Şule Toktaş, ‘Women’s Property Rights in Turkey’, Turkish Studies, 15.1 (2014), 29–44 <https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2014.891350> (p. 30).

35 O’Neil and Toktaş, p. 36.

36 O’Neil and Toktaş, p. 674.

13 1: Blu r r i ng Bou ndar i e s i n Ge c e kondu s

Başıbüyük’s gecekondus were targeted by governmental renewal because their contested ownership did not conform to neoliberal ideals of delineated publicprivate ownership. Neoliberal ownership reflects Singer’s ownership model because of the definitive boundary between state and owner.37 However, ownership creates specific spatial conditions and these spatialities suggest the ownership model to be an illusion. Indeed, Nicholas Blomley suggests Singer’s ownership model ‘relies upon a geography of property, predicated on finite boundaries and absolute spaces’.38 In contrast, gecekondus in Başıbüyük are a majority of de facto ownership revealing indeterminate public and private spaces.

The following case studies demonstrate the role of women in blurring the boundaries between public and private space and how neoliberal ownership disproportionately affects them. Together, these factors establish the argument for alternative models of ownership.

Women in gecekondus reconfigure boundaries between public and private property through a socially created commons. Gecekondus are predominantly single-rise buildings in irregular formation with blurred thresholds between public and private space (Fig.4). For example, the collective building and maintenance of the gecekondu and its boundaries is performed by women.39 Their agency blurs the thresholds between home and street and thus defies a publicprivate dichotomy and singular owner. Women collectively claim land because of a constitutive creation of the gecekondu commons. However, as Blomley explicates, the ownership model ‘renders other claims to land – especially those of a more collective nature – marginal, […] denying them legal standing and rights status’.40 Consequently, the collective ownership by women is delegitimised because it alters absolute ideals of autonomy and singularity of private property.

Blomley, p. 4.

Blomley, p. 27.

39 Aslı Sarıoğlu, ‘Displaced Women: Practices of Urban Transformation in Istanbul on the Isolated Effect on Women’s Live’, in Rethinking Urban Inclusion: Spaces, Mobilizations, Interventions, ed. By Nancy Duxbury (CES, 2013) 128-144, (p. 135).

40 Blomley, p. 27.

37 38

14 The allusion of autonomy is fragmented in gecekondus by the dependency of others on women to maintain homes.

A binary of public-private ownership undervalues the reproductive labour performed by women and is not reflected in the demolition compensation of Başıbüyük’s gecekondus. Residents were given the option to purchase a TOKI apartment with state-subsidized credit and the demolition value of their units which constituted one-quarter of the new apartment’s value.41 Additionally, this limited compensation did not consider the intangible property value of women’s unpaid domestic labour. In Başıbüyük, unpaid reproductive labour is performed by women because the resident’s low-income does not allow separate budgets for care.42 There is value in this labour, and it should be recognised within the

gecekondu property compensation. Indeed, David Bollier argues ‘neoliberal economics and policy makers depict value as synonymous with price […]

Anything else that people and societies care about is seen as a mere matter of

values – private, personal and beyond the scope of the market-based polity’.43 This neoliberal ideal underpins why a binary of public-private ownership model only compensates for private property. Thus, women’s unpaid labour in gecekondus which challenges boundaries on monetary value within autonomous ownership, is not valued, maintaining the socioeconomic differences between men and women.

Women claim a cultural ownership of gecekondus through gendered relations blurring finite public and private space. For example, the presence of women sitting on front doorstops, shaded streets corners or opening one’s home to another privatises the public realm44 (Fig.5). Indeed, Aslı Sarıoğlu argues that women in gecekondus are more dependent than men on cultural, spatial

Tuna Kuyucu and Ozlem Unsal, ‘Urban Transformation’ as State-led Property Transfer: An Analysis of Two Cases of Urban Renewal in Istanbul’, Urban Studies, (2010) 1-21, (p. 9).

42 Sarıoğlu, p. 138.

43 David Bollier, Re-Imagining Value: Insights from the Care Economy, Commons, Cyberspace and Nature (2016), p. 3.

44 Tahire Erman and Burcu Hatiboğlu, ‘Gendering Residential Space: From Squatter and Slum Housing to the Apartment Estates in Turkish Renewal Projects’, City & Community, 17.3 (2018), 808–34 <https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12325> (p. 811).

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15 expressions because of their job descriptions, gender and family values or their level of education.45 These relations challenge the dichotomy of men’s association with the public realm and women’s association with the private realm and result in a cultural ownership of space. Thus, women’s agency creates an ownership reflective of gendered relations. However, a neo-liberal ideology excludes cultural ownership from its model46 and champions the separation of family matters from politics through an imposed boundary between the private and public realms, rendering women’s cultural ownership invisible.

Social relations by women within gecekondu districts create a neighbourhood structure of care. Spatially the relations of care manifest through the cultural use and maintenance of streets and gardens.47 Furthermore, Sarıoğlu’s research on

gecekondu areas and Başıbüyük explicates that the ‘rarity of kindergarten and caring houses and the highness of their prices cause women to solve such problems through social relations’.48 Gecekondu neighbourliness on streets ensures the care of children playing outside. The implication is that the social relations of care are dependent on the surrounding urban environment. The

gecekondu urban environment demonstrates a cultural reconstruction of the binary of public-private property. This highlights the argument for an alternative property model that understands the fluidity of property; a model premised on care and social relations which would directly empower women.

Sarıoğlu, p. 135.

Blomley, p. 11.

47 Sarıoğlu, p. 141.

48 Ibid, p. 142.

45 46

16 Figure 4: Blurring Boundaries through Cultural and Collective Ownership

Figure 4: Blurring Boundaries through Cultural and Collective Ownership Private, Cultural, Collective, Public

Figure 5: Gendered Relations in Gecekondus

Private

Cultural

Collective

Figure 5: Gendered Relations in Gecekondus

Public

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2: Const r u c t i ng Bor de r s i n TO KI Tow e r s

The imposed neoliberal public-private ownership model not only renders women’s claims to space in gecekondus invisible, but also disproportionately affects women in their new lives in TOKI towers. This section will analyse the consequences of women’s displacement to TOKI apartments in terms of gendered cultures and domestic violence.

The binary of public-private property ownership is spatially reflected in the TOKI apartment design and affects the gendered cultures of women. The six TOKI towers in Başıbüyük consist of 50 flats of 80 square metres and are the same in interior design.49 The homogenous apartments have strict delegations of public and private space which are not conducive for gendered cultures (Fig.6). They are also not large enough for families.50 The accepted neoliberal view of isolated family/private space transcends the communal spatiality of a gecekondu.

Consequently, in TOKI towers women take activities, such as yearly mattress wool washing or food preparation to the corridors and streets51 (Fig.7). In some cases, this causes tension with the TOKI managers or other residents and results in a loss of social relations for women.

The lack of social connection in TOKI apartments limits women’s collective, reproductive labour. Sarıoğlu illustrates that the neighbourly watching of children is lost in a tower, causing the children to stay at home and52 intensifying the demand for women’s unpaid care labour. Hence, women are isolated from paid labour.53 This is evidenced through the floor plan of Başıbüyük’s apartments which house a repetition of units isolated from the street; functionally opposite to the former gecekondu structure (Figs.8-9). It must also be considered that at the

Kuyucu and Unsal, p. 9.

Karaman, p. 728.

51 Erman and Hatiboğlu, p. 821.

52 Sarıoğlu, p. 141 53 Ibid, p. 141.

49 50

18 time of eviction, women’s paid employment was already low.54 This is because the strong presence of traditional gender roles in gecekondus were largely migrated from rural, village norms.55 Nonetheless, this suggests an argument against an ownership model that further excludes women from employment.

The lack of identity in TOKI apartments weakens social relations and increases confinement for women. The multi-level towers with non-functional green areas and bordered private areas condemn women to an isolated way of life (Figs.1011). Similarly, Kern argues that market housing disrupts ‘supportive social networks that low-income women develop to help each other to survive’.56 Thus, the repercussions of an absence of social relations amongst women could affect female solidarity in the face of domestic violence.

TOKI’s ownership structure follows a state-subsidized, mortgage loan scheme and increases monetary responsibilities for its residents. Loans, gas contributions and other regular payments required in the new apartments can increase impoverishment for families. This can have damaging consequences for young women or girls, who are required to drop out of school to work for these new expenses.57 Furthermore, Kuyucu summarises the extent of the inequalities produced by UTPs as: ‘disproportionately benefiting the already economically privileged actors in the settlements […] denying any rights to the weakest parties […] allowing people to manipulate the implementation process to reap personal benefits […] imposing an inflexible property regime on the inhabitants.’58 Neoliberal urbanism causes the loss of informality as an affordable way of life, dependency on the state increases and the supposed expropriated land is redeveloped for profit, which only exacerbates economic inequalities.

Furthermore, Kern argues that financial instability ‘can keep women trapped in untenable or even abusive relationships when they can’t afford to move out of

Sarıoğlu, p. 138.

Erman and Hatiboğlu, p. 819.

56 Kern, p. 83.

57 Sarıoğlu, pp. 141-142.

58 Kuyucu, p. 618.

54 55

19 housing they share with a spouse of partner’.59 This is a critical point to establish considering Tahire Erman and Burcu Hatiboğlu’s research on Ankara’s UTPs found economic insecurity increased family disputes and in some cases male violence.60 Furthermore, isolated TOKI towers decrease visibility of women’s issues and domestic violence thus leaving ‘women to cope with their own victimization’.61 Although, these UTP studies are limited to Ankara, the similar situation in Başıbüyük establishes the argument for alternative forms of ownership to prevent domestic violence.

Figure 6: TOKI Tower Borders

Kern, p. 83.

Erman and Hatiboğlu, p. 829.

61 Ibid, p. 830.

59 60

20 Figure 7: Gendered Relations in Streets and Corridors

Different roles of women -lunch set out on floor and gendered cultures in -local fairs gecekondus -local bazaar Link this to participation: asking women what they want from a new neighbourhood

Private, Communal, Public

cekondu life and activites in TOKI towers

Figure 7: Gendered Relations in Streets and Corridors

21 Figure 8: Gecekondu Street

Figure 9: Başıbüyük’s Isolated TOKI Towers

Figure 8: Gecekondu Street Figure 9: Başıbüyük’s Isolated TOKI Towers

22 Figure 10: Multi-levelled Towers and Non-functional Green Space

Figure 11: Bordered Private Spaces

Figure 10: Multi-levelled Towers and Non-functional Green Space Figure 11: Bordered Private Spaces

23 3. A lt e r nat i v e F or ms of O w ne r shi p

Thus far, this study has interrogated how women reconfigure a public-private property division in the gecekondu phenomenon through gendered relations.

Consequently, the analysis reveals that an imposed neoliberal private-public property division disproportionately affects the position of women and reenforces spatial dichotomies that are conducive for domestic violence.

Therefore, this section argues for alternative forms of ownership, justified through three case studies, and asks what the role of design is in these ownership models.

The ‘Intersectional City House’ in Vienna is an alternative housing model by the self-organised Association for Accessibility in Art, in Everyday Life, in Minds, developed with GABU Heindl Architects. The house is constructed on association-based community whose members either combat discrimination or address gender issues and aim to empower marginalised groups.62 The intersectionality is twofold: firstly, members are from both refugee and queer communities and have strong solidarity between them; secondly, the central kitchen intersects with all three storeys of the building and consists of both collectively used and private spaces63 (Fig.12).

The role of design in this

alternative model is to invoke a spatial representation of the intangible intersectionality of its residents. Once the collective planning was complete; the group members remodelled the house themselves,64 exposing how design can actively involve its participants through collective-based ownership and a new way of living. Furthermore, the group established individual rents based on what they could afford, ‘irrespective of the size and location of their private space’.65 The deduction here is to apply a participatory methodology to housing design

GABU Heindl Architektur, ‘Intersectional City House, Vienna’ <http://www.gabuheindl.at/en/overview/living-and-working/intersectional-city-house-vienna.html> [accessed 22 March 2021].

63 Ibid.

64 Ibid.

65 Ibid.

62

24 and create alternative forms of ownership that empower women through economic solidarity.

At a city-scale, an alternative ownership strategy could be to implement municipal led social-housing that provides property rights for women explicitly.

For example, Agarwal’s work in India proposes bequeathing urban homestead titles to women under anti-poverty, government schemes, rather than joint titles with husband; placing women’s group rights in a land trust for use rights but not the right to alienate the land; and enabling women to invest in a house jointly with other women.66 Firstly, Agarwal argues property ownership augments a woman and their children’s economic stability and social well-being, enhancing their overall empowerment.67 Secondly, property contributes to a woman’s ability to leave considering domestic violence creates ‘a painful choice between homelessness and injury’.68 This suggests that architects can apply ownership models to design alternative housing to TOKI towers; ownership that contests housing as a private commodity which holds women responsible for their own well-being.69 Instead, ownership could be an active method of promoting safety for women lacking economic security that also offers women agency and choice.

These ownership models are highly relevant to gecekondus, given the collective nature of gecekondu life and could be implemented as per the following case study.

Thailand’s Baan Mankong programme is a national-scale, collective land tenure and housing production which upgrades informal settlements and protects poorer communities from ‘market enclosure’70 (Figs.13-14). The programme involves flexible options for land tenure security such as: ‘purchasing the land

66

Bina Agarwal, 'Women and Property: Reducing Domestic Violence, Enhancing Group Rights',

People & Policy: Informing, inspiring and initiating change, 8 (2007), 1-4 (p. 3-4), in

<http://www.binaagarwal.com/popular%20writings/Women&Property_domestic%20violence_P&P_2 007.pdf> [accessed 9 February 2021].

67 Ibid, p. 1.

68 Ibid, p. 1.

69 Kern, p. 165.

70 Brenda Pérez-Castro in conversation with Somsook Boonyabancha, 'On ‘being collective’: a patchwork conversation with Somsook Boonyabancha on poverty, collective land tenure and Thailand’s Baan Mankong programme', Radical Housing Journal, 1.2 (2019), 167-177 (p. 171).

25 they already occupy, land-sharing, long-term leases from public agencies, nearby relocation’. 71 Implementation is based on the idea that the ‘direct allocation of national government resources to communities, organized into cooperatives, can trigger collaboration and leverage resources from the same communities, local authorities, NGOs and development partners to upgrade informal settlements’.72 Fundamentally, the programme uses ‘collective land as a tool to strengthen the poor and expand their freedoms as a group’.73 The role of design in this model is to focus on the community and social system rather than the physical unit, the inhabitant’s overall wellbeing and making the inhabitants the planners of their communities.74 This model is a global reference for how to upgrade informal settlements from a community-led perspective and thus strongly supports the argument for how alternative ownership could be implemented in Istanbul’s

gecekondus.

Figure 12: GABU Heindl Architects, Intersectional City House, 2016

Pérez-Castro with Boonyabancha. p. 169.

Ibid, p. 168.

73 Ibid, p. 174.

74 Ibid, p. 177.

71

72

26 Figure 13: CODI, The final “cluster” house layout for one of the plots, 2005

Figure 13: CODI, The final “cluster” house layout for one of the plots, 2005 Figure 14: CODI, Participatory design of affordable house-types, 2005

Figure 14: CODI, Participatory design of affordable house-types, 2005

27 4. Me t hodolog y and De si g n

The alternative ownership case studies can be applied through speculative design as a key research methodology. Indeed, my preliminary design proposes a socialhousing cooperative for the residents of Başıbüyük (Fig.15). Collective spaces for cooking, working, living and childcare are titled and managed by women (Fig.16), informed by the intersectional house. The design itself also rationalises issues identified earlier in this paper. For example, access to collective spaces of social reproduction and offset balconies/break-out spaces increases visibility; reducing isolation of residents and also satisfying gendered cultures that are important to

gecekondu life but are lost in TOKI apartments (Fig.17). The in-between areas between public and private space visually represent the strategy towards collective land tenure and anti-autonomous ownership (Fig.18). Fundamentally however, the design project is a test site for how alternative forms of ownership could be applied across Istanbul’s areas of urban renewal, and implemented on a city-scale, as per the Baan Mankong programme. The scheme uses property ownership to prevent domestic violence through improving the socioeconomic position of its residents, which in TOKI towers is worsened.

The design research speculation will be furthered with qualitive and participatory, psychogeographic and cognitive mapping with women living in Başıbüyük’s

gecekondus and TOKI towers. These mapping techniques are relevant because they convey the simultaneous experience of place and subjective notions of property. This is in contrast to conventional maps which show an explicit publicprivate division of the city, which as this pilot thesis has established is an illusion.

Finally, it is clear there is limited knowledge on how varying forms of ownership affect domestic violence. Therefore, the methodology will include qualitive structured and semi-structured interviews with women living in gecekondus and TOKI apartments to document their experiences of domestic violence as a result of displacement and design. This will inform my future design and thesis research which will actively centre participants’ empowerment and safety.

28 Figure 15: Social-Housing Cooperative in Başıbüyük

Figure 15: Social-Housing Cooperative in Başıbüyük Figure 16: Collective Spaces

Figure 16: Collective Spaces

Figure 17: Offset Balconies and Break-out Spaces

Figure 18: In-between Spaces

Figure 17: Offset Balconies and Break-out Spaces

31 Conc lu si on

This study explores various forms of ownership and their gendered, spatial implications through an in-depth analysis of gecekondus and TOKI apartments in Başıbüyük. The first part of this paper establishes that a neoliberal binary of public-private ownership, akin to the ownership model, renders women’s claim to land in gecekondu areas invisible because women create alternative forms of property ownership. Women’s gendered cultures and social networks of care reconfigure a distinction between public and private property; collectively claiming cultural ownership of their gecekondus.

Therefore, part two

demonstrates that following displacement to TOKI towers in Başıbüyük, the imposed neoliberal ownership model disproportionately affects them. The separation of the private sphere not only affects gendered relations, but also condemns women to an isolated way of life. Furthermore, in some cases, prospects for employment or education were limited and economic instability increases domestic violence. Hence, the third part studies the role of design in ownership models based on association community, collective-land tenure or government implemented property rights for women. The ambitions of these models are to either empower women, actively prevent domestic violence or to equitably upgrade informal settlements.

The findings reveal that the gecekondu layout is flexible, with a particular role of women in the care and socialisation at the front of the house, blurring the boundaries between public and private space. In contrast, the TOKI apartment layout is confined and delineated. Decisively, this study argues that alternative forms of ownership that emphasise collectivity, such as the case studies discussed in India, Thailand and Vienna, should be implemented through design in Istanbul’s UTPs. Thus, my own speculative design proposal is informed by the case studies to methodically test this strategy in the study site of Başıbüyük. It is intended as a spatial intervention against domestic violence and for female property equity. Although there is extensive research on the ambiguous legality of the UTP process in Başıbüyük, this study demonstrates a gap of knowledge

32 regarding how contested property ownership affects domestic violence for Başıbüyük’s existing gecekondu dwellers and displaced residents. Future fieldwork in Başıbüyük will focus on this question in order to advocate for alternative models of ownership. Nonetheless, women’s cultural ownership of

gecekondu space not only reveals the falsehood of the ownership model but also reconfigures boundaries between public and private property. This leads to the reasoning that architects can creatively intervene in discourse on legal geography and feminism to challenge homogenous ideals on housing design and propose alternative models that directly increase female equality.

33 Li st of I llu st r at i ons

Figure 1: Google Earth, Maltepe, 2021 https://earth.google.com/web/search/maltepe [accessed 24 March 2021].

Figure 2: Google Earth, Başıbüyük, 2021 https://earth.google.com/web/search/maltepe [accessed 24 March 2021].

Figure 3: Yaşar Adanali, Forced Evictions from Settlements in Istanbul, in Tansel Korkmaz, Eda Unlu-Yucesoy with Yasar Adanali, Can Altay and Philipp Misselwitz, 'Istanbul: Living in Voluntary and Involuntary Exclusion', DIWAN, (2009), Published as part of the DIWAN publications on the occasion of International Architecture Biennial of Rotterdam 2009,

<https://www.academia.edu/9247864/ISTANBUL_LIVING_IN_VOLUNTARY _AND_INVOLUNTARY_EXCLUSION_Edited_by_Tansel_Korkmaz_Eda_Unl u_Yucesoy_with_Yasar_Adanali_Can_Altay_and_Philipp_Misselwitz_DIWAN _Series_Edited_by_Philipp_Misselwitz_and_Can_Altay_IABR_2009> [accessed

10 February 2021].

Figure 4: Eloise Piper, Blurring Boundaries through Cultural and Collective Ownership, created by the author for this pilot thesis, 2021.

Figure 5: Eloise Piper, Gendered Relations in Gecekondus, created by the author for this pilot thesis, 2021.

Figure 6: Eloise Piper, TOKI Tower Borders, created by the author for this pilot thesis, 2021.

Figure 7: Eloise Piper, Gendered Relations in Streets and Corridors, created by the author for this pilot thesis, 2021.

Figure 8: Eloise Piper, Gecekondu Street, created by the author for this pilot thesis, 2021.

Figure 9: Eloise Piper, Başıbüyük’s Isolated TOKI Towers, created by the author for this pilot thesis, 2021.

Figure 10: Eloise Piper, Multi-levelled Towers and Non-functional Green Space, created by the author for this pilot thesis, 2021.

Figure 11: Eloise Piper, Bordered Private Spaces, created by the author for this pilot thesis, 2021.

Figure 12: GABU Heindl Architects, Intersectional City House, 2016 http://www.gabuheindl.at/en/overview/living-and-working/intersectional-cityhouse-vienna.html [accessed 19 March 2021].

34 Figure 13: CODI, The final “cluster” house layout for one of the plots, 2005 <https://en.codi.or.th/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Baan-Mankong-Urban10.jpg> [accessed 20 March 2021].

Figure 14: CODI, Participatory design of affordable house-types, 2005 <https://en.codi.or.th/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Baan-Mankong-Urban10.jpg> [accessed 20 March 2021].

Figure 15: Eloise Piper, Social-Housing Cooperative in Başıbüyük, created by the author for this pilot thesis, 2021.

Figure 16: Eloise Piper, Collective Spaces, created by the author for this pilot thesis, 2021.

Figure 17: Eloise Piper, Offset Balconies and Break-out Spaces, created by the author for this pilot thesis, 2021.

Figure 18: Eloise Piper, In-between Spaces, created by the author for this pilot thesis, 2021.

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