Cultural patterns of shoe storage in the apartment life of İstanbul, a focus on the differences of shoe case usages

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This paper aims to reflect an ethnographic research on the usages of shoe cases in the apartment life of Istanbul. This topic is chosen to understand the effect of a cultural behaviour on taking off the shoes before entering a private place. This common cultural behaviour may have role on changing the design of shoe case, its variations developed by users and its artefacts. To do this research, I followed interviewing and literature review methods. Initially, I met people to talk about their habits on taking off the shoes and then I searched for the literature within the relation of common spaces in neighbourhood. The reason I followed that way is not to have some preconceptions though the literature before I conducted interviews. As a conclusion, paper inquiries the concept of borders, hygiene, and common place through the changing usages of a shoe case and through the habit of taking off the shoes. Keywords: Shoe case, apartment life, borders, hygiene, common place