The Culturally Transplanted and Displaced: The geographies of re-production of space and identity

Abstract

The paper will address the issues of geographical transplantation, displacement and the re-shaping of both space and identities beyond the limitations of national and cultural boundaries. The context of the paper will be the city of Istanbul where the body and its representation is charged with historical, cultural, social and political boundaries as well as geographical and physical signifiers. The body in this context becomes a contexted territory - as Jean Baudrillard and Paul Virilio write - where physical and geographical borders are redefined, assimilated and/or rejected. By focusing on contemporary Istanbul, the article will analyze the contradictions of a body transplanted from the West into the East and the difficulties in the re-production of spaces and identities that are characterized by absolute definitions that offer only strategies of assimilation or rejection, destruction or preservation.