https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1125-7528
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ABSTRACT
Many studies have identified the rise of the drug trade in the inner-city slums of Ankara’s Altındağ district in the wake of post-urban transformation projects (UTPs). However, none of them has thus far discussed the surge of such organized criminal activity in relation to the wider urban policy regime of Turkey. This paper offers the concept of advanced marginality to understand the complex relations between neoliberal urban governmentality and its repercussions in local areas, which results in UTPs, the disintegration of communality, the emergence of slums, and the rise of illicit enterprises. The paper argues that the formation of organized drug trade in Altındağ following the development of UTPs is an outcome of the advanced marginality resulting from the changing urban governmentality and its deliberate neoliberal political preferences.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Akalın, “Kentsel Dönüşüm,” 30.
2 These can be seen in the strategic plans of Altındağ municipality. Please see Altındağ Belediyesi, 2006–2009 Stratejik Planı, 62–3, 141–2.
3 Aktaş Yamanoğlu, “Kent Yoksulu Gençlerin”; Bal, “Altındağ’daki Kent Yoksulu”; Bektaş, “Mekansal Ayrışmanın”; Bektaş and Ceyhan, “Ankara-Altındağ Tepesi”; Bektaş and Türkün, “Kentsel Dönüşümde Karma”; Danışan, “Violation of Housing Rights”; Erman, “Çandarlı-Hıdırlıktepe”; Ersavaş, “Gecekondu Alanlarının Dönüşümü”; Erman and Hatiboğlu, “Gendering Residential Space”; Hatiboğlu Eren, “Geçmişte ve Bugün”, “Özel ve Kamusal,” and “Kent İçi Yoksul”; and Kök, “Kent Yoksullarının.”
4 To exemplify, Bektaş “Mekansal Ayrışmanın”, Bektaş and Türkün, “Kentsel Dönüşümde Karma” and Erman, “Çandarlı-Hıdırlıktepe.”
5 For instance, Hatiboğlu Eren, “Geçmişte ve Bugün”, 278, “Kent İçi Yoksul,” 10; Bektaş, “Mekansal Ayrışmanın,” 233.
6 Mercan, “The Drug Business,” 5–6.
7 We aim to explore the micro-level effects of macro-level magnitudes or the background factors in Altındağ. This is because Mercan has revealed the foreground factors, psychosocial processes, like the disadvantaged youths’ search for recognition in animating the micro-logics of retail-level dealing and organized criminal groupings.
8 Erman, “Understanding the experiences.”
9 Wacquant, Urban Outcasts, 2.
10 There is a considerable amount of work appreciating and applying advanced marginality in different context and themes. Among many, see the most recent and comprehensive edited volume: Flint and Powell, eds. Class, Ethnicity and the State. For the criticisms of advanced marginality bringing together theoretical and contextual critiques, please see Squires and Lea, eds. Criminalisation and Advanced Marginality, chapters 2, 4, 6, 8, 9. Despite many critiques and changing tones, these works suggest the common tendency of urban decline and dereliction in Western and non-Western’s metropolises that the deproletarianization of working-class has accompanied the strict segregation of urban space on the axis of race and ethnicity within the territories of relegation and stigma where criminal economies emerge as the main buttress of the urban poor’s daily survival.
11 See Endnote 3.
12 Danielson and Keleş, The Politics of Rapid Urbanization.
13 Şenyapılı, Baraka’dan Gecekonduya, 93–102.
14 Şenyapılı and Türel, Ankara'da Gecekondu.
15 Karpat, The Gecekondu.
16 The size of population and the number of these neighborhoods changed in time, while some of them united with one another, by the administrative regulations. Between 2004 and 2007, the number of neighborhoods was reduced to 12. These are Aktaş, Atilla, Çandarlı, Fatih, Gökçenefe, Gültepe (Çinçin), Organgazi, Öncüler, Plevne, Server Somuncuoğlu, Şükriye, and Yıldırım Beyazıt. See Bektaş, “Mekansal Ayrışma,” 227.
17 Şenyapılı, Baraka’dan Gecekonduya, 127–8.
18 Aygül, “1940–1950 Yılları Arasında.”
19 Güney, Soba, Pencere Camı.
20 Soyuer, Ankara Kabadayıları.
21 Hatiboğlu Eren, “Geçmişte ve Bugün,” 275.
22 Güney, Soba, Pencere Camı, 20.
23 Ibid., 21.
24 Hatiboğlu Eren, “Geçmişte ve Bugün,” 276.
25 Erman, “Understanding the experiences.”
26 Erman, “Understanding the experiences,” 73–8.
27 Balaban, “The Enclosure of Urban Space,” 2174–6; Erman, “Understanding the experiences”; 78–84; Batuman, “City profile”, 588.
28 Bartu-Candan and Kolluoğlu, “Emerging spaces of neoliberalism”; Karaman, “Urban pulse”; Kuyucu and Ünsal, “Urban transformation”; and Erman, “From informal housing.”
29 Batuman, “City profile,” 587–8, and Erman, “Formalization by the State,” 428.
30 Erman, “Understanding the experiences,” 73–8.
31 Batuman, “City profile”, 584.
32 Işık and Pınarcıoğlu, Nöbetleşe Yoksulluk.
33 Güzey, “Urban regeneration,” 32.
34 Batuman, “City profile,” 586–7.
35 Bektaş and Türkün, “Kentsel Dönüşümde Karma,” 269.
36 Danışan, “Violation of Housing Rights,” 80, and Erman and Hatiboğlu. “Gendering Residential Space,” 816.
37 In 2015, 43 percent of the relegated population either handed over their rights or rented out the new flats. See Bektaş and Türkün, “Kentsel Dönüşümde”, 272.
38 Mercan, “The Drug Business,” 6; “Bir Gözlem Sahası,” 103.
39 Wacquant, Urban Outcasts and “Revisiting territories of relegation”.
40 Bulutay and Taştı, Informal sector, and Şenses, “Neoliberal Ekonomi Politikaları.”
41 Buğra and Keyder, New Poverty.
42 Şenyapılı, Baraka’dan Gecekonduya, 126–72.
43 Kongar, “Altındağ’da,” 120, and Drakakis-Smith, “Slums and squatters in Ankara,” 231.
44 Danışan, “Violation of Housing Right,” 70–1.
45 Ersavaş, “Gecekondu Alanlarının Dönüşümü,” 149.
46 Bektaş and Türkün, “Kentsel Dönüşümde Karma,” 270.
47 Danışan, “Violation of Housing Rights,” 79–89; Bektaş, “Mekansal Ayrışma,” 237; Hatiboğlu Eren, “Geçmişte ve Bugün”, 278; and Bektaş and Türkün, “Kentsel Dönüşümde,” 271.
48 Akalın, “Kentsel Dönüşüm,” 26–8.
49 Wacquant, Punishing the Poor, xvii, 16–8
50 Ibid., 99, 289–304.
51 Erman and Hatiboğlu, “Gendering Residential Space,” 826.
52 Muşanoviç, “Eşleri Cezaevinde Bulunan,” 49–51.
53 Ibid., 71–3.
54 Erman, “Çandarlı-Hıdırlıktepe”; Bektaş and Türkün, “Kentsel Dönüşümde,” 275; and Bektaş “Mekansal Ayrışma,” 233.
55 Erman and Hatiboğlu, “Gendering Residential Space,” 826.
56 Wacquant, Urban Outcasts, 236.
57 Erman and Hatiboğlu “Rendering responsible, provoking desire,” 1290, 1297–8.
58 Danışan, “Violation of Housing Rights,” 96–101, and Bektaş and Türkün, “Kentsel Dönüşümde,” 271–2.
59 Hatiboğlu Eren, “Özel ve Kamusal,” 10, 13–4, and Hatiboğlu Eren,“ Kent İçi Yoksul,” 7–8.
60 Kök, “Kent Yoksullarının,” 72.
61 Bektaş and Yücel, “Ankara-Altındağ Tepesi,” 127.
62 Erman, “The Politics of Squatter,” 996.
63 Hatiboğlu Eren,, “Geçmişte ve Bugün,” 273–4.
64 Erman and Hatiboğlu. “Gendering Residential Space,” 818.
65 Erman, “The Politics of Squatter,” 995–7.
66 Yücel, “Mekansal Ayrışma,” 230.
67 Wacquant, Urban Outcasts, 237.
68 Erkip, “Community and neighborhood,” 100–2.
69 Aktaş Yamanoğulları, “Kent Yoksulu Gençlerin,” 28.
70 Bektaş and Yücel, “Ankara-Altındağ Tepesi,” 125.
71 Wacquant, Urban Outcasts, 237.
72 Ibid., 240.
73 Aktaş Yamanoğulları, “Kent Yoksulu Gençlerin,” 36.
74 Danışan, “Violation of Housing Rights,” 88.
75 Bal, “Altındağ’ daki kent yoksulu,” 123.
76 Erman and Hatiboğlu, “Gendering Residential Space,” 825–6. Also see Hatiboğlu Eren, “Kent İçi Yoksul,”10–2.
77 Erman and Hatiboğlu, “Gendering Residential Space,” 827.
78 Ibid., 824.
79 Ersavaş, “Gecekondu Alanlarının Dönüşümü,” 192.
80 Wacquant, Urban Outcasts, 243.
81 Ibid., 244.
82 Şen, “Kökene Dayalı Dayanışma,” 249–92.
83 Drakakis-Smith, “Slums and Squatters,” 232.
84 Şen. “Kökene Dayalı Dayanışma,” 287.
85 Mercan, “Bir Gözlem Sahası,” 104–11.
86 Danışan, “Violation of Housing Rights,” 94.
87 Wacquant, Urban Outcasts, 245–6.
88 Hatiboğlu Eren,“Geçmişte ve Bugün,” 278–9.
89 Hatiboğlu Eren, “Kent İçi Yoksul,” 5–6.
90 Erman and Hatiboğlu Eren, “Gendering Residential Space,” 815.
91 Erman, “Formalization by the State,” 428.
92 Erman, “Understanding the experiences,” 104.
93 Hatiboğlu Eren, “Geçmişte ve Bugün,” 276.
94 Ibid., 277–8.
95 Erman, “Ankara Kent Çeperinin Dönüşümü,” 188.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Boran Ali Mercan
Boran Ali Mercan is Research Fellow in the Faculty of Political Science at Ankara University. He is interested in theories of crime, deviance and social control, and has published many articles on these topics in scholarly journals.
Mustafa Şen
Mustafa Şen is Associate Professor of Sociology at Middle East Technical University. He is interested in economic sociology and sociology of religion. His current research is concerned with urban poverty and the transformation of state-religion relations in Turkey.