Project Details
Projekt
Istanbul Heritage - Valuable and Dispensable. The Ethics of Urban Renewal and Heritage Protection, from 1910 to the Gezi Protests of 2013
Applicant
Professor Dr. Christoph K. Neumann
Subject Area
Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies
Term
from 2015 to 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 240207984
The debate about what kind of city Istanbul is or should be ¿ Islamic, traditional, oriental, a thirdworld metropolis, (post-)colonial or even global ¿ has been going on for a long time. Throughout the last century, this was an important issue in urban politics in general and in heritage policy and the construction of national history in particular. Heritage policy designates buildings either as heritage to be protected or as dispensable. The project ¿Istanbul Heritage - Valuable and Dispensable¿ investigates the ethical negotiations about the use of the urban structures and historical built environment in the city. These negotiations have a central ethical trait because the definition of what constitutes valuable heritage and what is dispensable implies obligations for each citizen. Consequently, it exceeds moral prescriptions. The contribution of this project to the research group is to discuss in-depth the importance of history, heritage policy and (social or collective) memory for urban ethics. This research project investigates how elements of the built environment and historical examples are attached to social actors and thus become instrumental in creating an ethics of ¿good¿ and ¿correct¿ life. The negotiations about urban heritage, therefore, relate not only to the question of what character the city should have, but also to the issue of who should live in the city and how.In the case of Istanbul between 1910 and 2013, this proposed ethical actor is always a ¿modern¿ subject. For this subject the city has to be shaped in a ¿modern¿ way; on the other hand, s/he has to prove her/himself worthy of this modernity. In the framework of this project of modernity, however, the past and the protection of its built remains always played a decisive role ¿ as paradoxical as this may sound. The modern city and the modern citizen are required to be aware of their ¿roots,¿ to treat them with respect and to conserve them by means of heritage protection. In the case of Istanbul, the relationship between the modern citizen and her/his historical heritage has constituted and continues to constitute a matter of contention. The modern citizen assumes responsibility for her/his heritage ¿ however, how should he or she choose between the many pasts at hand? Five case studies in the urban space of Istanbul will be carried out and will use historical discourse analysis in order to understand the conflicts about heritage as ethical negotiations. Taken together, they focus on the actors involved, on changes over time in the heritage discourse and on a potential boom of urban ethics in the past decade.
DFG Programme
Research Units
