Spatialities of contentious politics: The case of Istanbul’s Beşiktaş neighborhood, çArşı footfall fandom and Gezi

Abstract

Following the literature on spatiality of contentious politics and inspired by Lefebvre's concept of everyday life, we argue that the study of Istanbul's Beşiktaş neighborhood as a “relational place” can help us contextualize the Gezi Park resistance that took place in the city in 2013. Though the neighborhood is very open to homogenizing pressures of neoliberal transformation, it still has lingering diverse and vibrant networks. This has partly been possible through the football fan group çArşı, which combines a wide series of community activism with neighborhood-based rhythms and rituals, generating a new urban sociability. This “place-framing” role that çArşı played in Beşiktaş, also allowed this fan group to combine its neighborhood power with the ongoing political mobilization during the Gezi resistance. The case of çArşı demonstrates how a simultaneous look at everyday life and place-based networks can help us explore the processes of contentious politics and analyze contingent ties between space, rhythms, and politics.