Istanbul Between the Global and the Local

This groundbreaking volume investigates the processes of globalization in one of the oldest and grandest of world cities. Istanbul usually is identified as a battleground between East and West, Islam and secularism. Yet the authors argue that beyond these clichZs lies a complex reality as Istanbulites simultaneously try to accommodate, understand, challenge, and shape the sweeping transformations that globalization has brought to their city. Explaining the course of the conflicts and the compromises involved in maintaining a precarious urbanity, this theoretically informed volume focuses on fields of struggle ranging from politics to heritage, humor to music, public space to housing.

Ayfer Bartu teaches anthropology at Koc University in Istanbul. Tanil Bora is the author of numerous articles and monographs on nationalist and religious movements in Turkey. Sema Erder teaches at Marmara University in Istanbul. Caglar Keyder teaches sociology at Bogazici University in Istanbul and the State University of New York at Binghamton. Yael Navaro-Yasin teaches in Social Anthropology at Cambridge University, U.K. Ayse Oncu teaches at the Sociology Department, Bogazici University, Istanbul. Martin Stokes teaches in the music department at the University of Chicago. Jenny White teaches anthropology at Boston University.