Introduction

1Urban transformation projects take a variety of forms, ranging from the elimination of substandard housing (slum clearance) to the physical rehabilitation of the built environment, from urban regeneration (including the revitalization of the economic fabric) to the renovation of historic city centers, as well as the renewal measures to upgrade buildings to seismic construction standards [Epstein, 2013 ; Roberts and Sykes, 2008 ; Türkün, 2011]. Although they might sometimes be considered to be mainly physical and material interventions on the urban fabric, their applications in reality have profound impact on the social life at the local level. In this context, researchers such as Coing [1966] have pointed out how urban renewal and residential land development operations deeply impact the socio-economic tissue of a neighborhood and influence the urban dynamics, namely in regards to the sense of belonging and modes of living of its inhabitants.

3The fieldwork of this research, the Fikirtepe urban transformation project, is an urban planning operation in downtown Istanbul. It is carried out essentially by the private sector for the demolition-reconstruction of existing residential buildings, mainly constructed on vacant lands in the 1950’s onward, by the inhabitants themselves and without proper governmental authorizations. Due to the nature of socio-economic dynamics of this neighborhood as well as the architectural configuration of the housing, Fikirtepe can be historically characterized as an “informal” neighborhood, in terms of urbanization nuanced by Roy [2011] as well as by Jacquot and Morelle [2018]. It is a large-scale urban development project, both in terms of the number of households affected (about 50,000 residents) and the size of the area in question (131 hectares) [Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning, 2017]. The purpose of this article is to analyze the spatialities of gender relations and to understand the perceptions of the inhabitants, particularly in the context of precarious neighborhoods such as Fikirtepe. Analyzing the spatial dynamics of residents living in gecekondu neighborhoods is especially important, as pointed out by various authors [Karaman, 2013 ; Pérouse, 2004], as these neighborhoods, object to radical urban renewal practices, historically represent dense social ties and proximity amongst dwellers.

4To be able to reply to our research question of how women and men are affected differently by this transformation project, we will first analyze the differences in social and spatial practices. Based on our findings of the fieldwork, we will illustrate how women and men socialize, analyze distinct spatial practices by touching upon the gendered perception of modernity and use of external spaces in the neighborhood and discuss the level of involvement in the functioning of the project. Then, we will indicate that this is mostly due women presenting an anchorage based on affective links to the housing environment whereas men have a different territorial anchorage via their professional life. We will argue that this distinction can be largely attributed to the gendered divisions of labor in the Turkish gecekondu community, which sometimes translates as a hesitancy to participate in the decision-making processes about the constructions. And finally, we conclude that by taking into account the whole process of the transformation project over the years, there has been a significant civic-awareness, demonstrating the capacity-building role of this experience and empowerment of the inhabitants.

1. Cities and social relations: analyzing the effects of an urban transformation project

1.1. Urban space through the gender lens, socially and spatially contextual

5This article explores how urban renewal operations are not experienced in the same way among the residents of a neighborhood. In fact, within a neighborhood, a resident’s place in the social network, the location of the apartment, and the existing social ties with other neighbors all play an undeniable role in how a resident is affected by an urban transformation project. For example, the dwellers of a house located in close proximity of major urban infrastructures - as opposed to another located in a more isolated place in the same neighborhood - might have more leverage since their location is pivotal to the project, giving them more “bargaining power” in front of the land developers in projects carried out by the private sector, as in the case of Istanbul. Indeed, various parameters such as age, financial situation, emotional connection to the neighborhood, personal investment to the housing environment, social position in the community, as well as the location of the land in the zoning plan of the development project determine how a resident is affected by the urban renewal.

6Among these various factors that come into play, for the purpose of this article, we propose to look specifically at the gendered differences during the regeneration experience in order to understand how men and women who reside in the same neighborhood are influenced differently by an ongoing urban renewal. Through the concepts of space appropriation, neighborhood attachment and everyday spatial practices of the urban dwellers, we seek to explore how the social representations and imaginaries around what constitutes “being urban” crystallize in the ways of living and the affective links to the living spaces for women and for men.

7In order to explain the urban from the gender standpoint, Louargant suggests “looking differently, through the prism of gender approaches, at the differentiated uses of the metropolis (...) and the design of metropolitan urban projects” in order to “reveal (...) the existence of a differentiated social construction of space, highlighting the forms of implicit or explicit hierarchization present in spatial organization.” [2015, p. 50]. In this sense, women’s spatialities, and more broadly the use of the city by women, have been objects of study in the scientific literature [Di Méo, 2012]. The relations of gendered spaces, and the articulation of city life and women [Bard, 2004 ; Denèfle, 2004] constitute essential perspectives to explore in contemporary urban studies. The articulation of space, place and gender [Massey, 1994] as well as the significance of public-private spheres, housing and social construction of gender relations has been explored from the geographic standpoint [Hancock, 2002]. Furthermore, gender from the territorial development perspective, namely in the Global South [Labourie-Racapé, 2004] and the experience of women especially during urban renovation projects [Luxembourg and Noûs, 2021] constitute an important component as well as the feminine-masculine social reproduction of space in precarious neighborhoods [Coutras, 2002]. Without claiming to enter into the consequent debates on the rich scientific productions of gender and feminist studies, which surpass the scope of this article, we will limit ourselves to the study of the relations between women and men in the urban context, and specifically precarious and informal neighborhoods of metropolitan city centers.

8In the scientific literature on urban studies, the concept of informality has been used to depict different ways economic, social or urban planning operations can deviate from the central and existing structural entities, be it the public or private sector, and especially in the context of Global South. In fact, Roy points out that “the splintering of urbanism does not take place at the fissure between formality and informality but rather, in fractal fashion, within the informalized production of space” [2011, p. 233] and we interpret gecekondu neighborhoods such as Fikirtepe as examples of “informal survivalism” put forward by Davis [2006] as a way of dwelling for the rural-to-urban migrants in large metropolises. Furthermore, in our research, we employ the term Global south in lines of the interpretations of Roy [2011] and the variations proposed by Jacquot and Morelle [2018] that reunite a certain number of characteristics of everyday life and urban policies : the potential uncertainty of administrative hierarchy or regulations regarding urban transformation, and as a consequence, different levels of residential informality; spatial practices and social relations on neighborhood ties; perception of gender relations and ways of living in the Mediterranean cities that can in fact be different than Northern countries.

9In order to analyze the differences of the spatial practices of men and women, Coutras indicates that “it seems essential to first establish the link between behaviors and representations, between discourses on frequentations and the acts performed.” [1989, p. 113]. In this sense, our research will draw upon the emotionality of social ties and the individual and collective sense of space for the inhabitants of Fikirtepe. In fact, in analyzing the gendered and spatial dimensions of socialization in working-class neighborhoods in France, Faure [2008] points out that the processes and spaces of socialization can be different for men and women. And in the Turkish context, Bayard-Çan indicates that gender is a “fundamental element governing modes of neighboring” insofar as “men and women have [...] specific modes of neighboring that are differentiated by their modalities and occupations of space.” [2011, p. 113]. In that sense, we argue that what the living space signifies and what “home” represents in daily life for the inhabitants determine the ways in which they will be impacted by urban transformation.

1.2. Methodology and fieldwork : the case of Fikirtepe

10In order to address these issues, this article is based on a fieldwork conducted between 2015 and 2018 on the urban transformation project of Fikirtepe, a working-class neighborhood in downtown Istanbul, Turkey. Situated in the urban district of Kadıköy, Fikirtepe is one of the first gecekondu neighborhoods of the Asian side of Istanbul.

11In fact, the term gecekondu refers to a range of differing realities in Turkish urbanization. Since its inception, this type of housing has undergone significant evolution in the architectural sense as well as the symbolic sense. As a complex phenomenon, gecekondu does not merely represent unregulated or informal housing, but encompasses several aspects and intersects with various domains including social, economic, cultural and architectural. The seminal work of Karpat [1976], as one of the first large-scale analysis of the gecekondu phenomenon to be published in English, clearly marks its origins with the rural-to-urban migration in the 1950’s. Furthermore, the resemblances with other national contexts, the phenomena of the arrival of rural migrants into bigger cities in hope for better work possibilities, coupled with the lack of affordable and adequate housing for these populations is mentioned by the author, such as in favelas in Brasil, barrios in Argentina, busti in India. Indeed, Şenyapılı [2004] demonstrates the evolution of gecekondu over the decades, in relation to different phases of Turkish economy, thus presenting its direct link to the changes in the labor market. Therefore, the nature of the gecekondu phenomenon has largely evolved in Istanbul’s landscape over time, raising questions around the social networks that it implies, as well as the perception of urban planners and governments, as analyzed by the “Gecekondu special volume” of European Journal of Turkish Studies (2004).

12Moreover, Akbulut and Başlık [2011, p. 26] mark the 1980’s as a turning point: “From the 1980s onward, speculative qualities and the motives behind the gecekondu gradually become more dominant over the mere shelter aspect.”. This change of scope and vision about gecekondu neighborhoods brings about debates around urban poverty, sentiment of marginalization and issues around urban-rural cultural divides, as exposed by the rich scientific literature that composes the “gecekondu studies” [Karaman, 2013 ; Pérouse, 2004 ; Türkün, 2011]. In this context, Fikirtepe neighborhood corresponds to these variations, from the first small-scale houses in the 1950’s constructed by the people coming from central Anatolia to find work in Istanbul, to the multi-story apartment blocks gradually being a rent-speculation tool in the 2010’s for the newcomers with modest revenues (such as students in the nearby university, migrants having lost their housing in the eastern villages..).

13In the last years, neighborhoods such as Fikirtepe have been subject to large-scale urban restructuring operations, that can be carried out by the public sector (including social housing projects), by private construction companies (mainly using a land-for-flat model), or even in a public-private partnership manner. The scientific literature has touched upon the evolution of gecekondu neighborhoods in Istanbul, such as Başıbüyük and Tarlabaşı [Kuyucu and Ünsal, 2010], from the standpoint of urban transformation projects and its effects on the precarious inhabitants. Other collective works, for example edited by Çavdar and Tan [2013], analyze other significant gecekondu neighborhoods of Istanbul (for example Sulukule, Tophane, Bahçeşehir, Ayazma, Başakşehir, and Küçükpazar, to name a few) that have been subject to urban planning operations to examine the role of urban regulations and the spatial practices of inhabitants.

14The story of Fikirtepe’s urbanization dates back to the 1950s, when populations from rural Anatolian provinces migrated to Istanbul. Due to the lack of available and affordable housing, they built their houses on their own and without prior urban planning permits, often with scrap construction materials. Later on, during the 1960s, the urbanization of Fikirtepe became denser as a result of the continuing rural-to-urban migration, often through people joining other family members that have already started living in Fikirtepe. Over time, the residents of Fikirtepe were able to obtain temporary title deeds through regularization campaigns initiated by the government in the 1990s, put into motion in order to administratively formalize the existing building stock. However, even long after the legalization of these apartments, Fikirtepe still carries the social stigma of a former gecekondu neighborhood, which has justified and accelerated the implementation of a transformation project to upgrade these zones.

15By the 2000’s, Fikirtepe represents a large working-class community, comprised of different smaller neighborhoods. Some of these areas present the traditional squatter architecture, consisting of small jerrybuilt single-story houses, oftentimes with small gardens, juxtaposed one another in narrow streets. Other parts have more vertical density, with two- or three-story apartment blocks, constructed around larger avenues. In any case, the forms of socialization and modes of living of the rural-to-urban migrants of Fikirtepe convey that of “urban villagers” of Gans [1982], a socio-spatial organization that exists in most gecekondu settlements, as Fliche [2004] points out.

16For the case of Fikirtepe, we use the term informal to describe the nature of the urbanization of this zone, with gradual construction of self-help housing. Over the years, the inhabitants have created a neighborhood ex nihilo, not only physically but also socially via neighborly relations established around mutual help and support. Even though later on in the 1990’s the inhabitants obtained title deeds for their homes, meaning that the regulatory administrative formalities have been completed in regards to government and land promoters, the imaginaries around being a “slum neighborhood” persists in the eyes of other Istanbulites. Therefore, in our fieldwork, we find that the concepts of informality and urban marginality have to be nuanced, clarifying the gradations that might exist in local contexts, such as Fikirtepe. This “complex continuum of legality and illegality” is indeed pointed out by Roy [2005, p. 149], “where squatter settlements formed through land invasion and self-help housing can exist alongside upscale informal subdivisions formed through legal ownership and market transaction but in violation of land use regulations. Both forms of housing are informal but embody very different concretizations of legitimacy. The divide here is not between formality and informality but rather a differentiation within informality.”. These concepts around different levels of urban marginality and housing informality are determining factors to explain the perceptions of urban transformation projects amongst gecekondu dwellers. Indeed, Kuyucu and Ünsal [2010, p. 1484] point out that “gecekondus and inner-city slums are particularly attractive for urban redevelopment for two reasons: legal ambiguities in their property regimes and their perceived status as centres of crime, blight and decay.”

17In order to fully grasp the everyday urban practices and to capture the real-life spatial configurations in this neighborhood, we have chosen to employ a qualitative methodology. Inspired by Grounded Theory [Glaser and Strauss, 1967] and Case Study [Yin, 2012], our fieldwork consists of semi-structured and in-depth interviews with residents of the Fikirtepe neighborhood who are directly affected by the project in question, as well as direct in-situ observation. These qualitative data were also combined with cartographic and other urban planning documents (maps and development plans at various scales as well as legislation on urban renewal). The use of Grounded theory was chosen especially, since this method “acknowledges the significance of experiences and involves a grounding in data”, which is “particularly important while studying the diversity in rural migrant women, including gecekondu residents, whose voices are hardly heard.” [Erman, 1996, p. 769].

2. The differences of everyday social and spatial practices in Fikirtepe

2.1. Perception modernity for the rural-to-urban migrant women

18The forms and functions of the built environment (the physical and architectural form) constitute an important factor in explaining the everyday social and spatial practices in gecekondu neighborhoods, with rural-to-urban migrant populations. Indeed, the uses and spatial practices are directly linked to the social representations and the imaginary around the urban renewal project. Especially in the case of a project undertaken in a working-class district, such as Fikirtepe, the amenities that are planned in the new buildings hint the marketing of a modern urban lifestyle, often perceived as not being in line with the “rural” habits of the current residents, who come from the Anatolian provinces. This modernity and urbanity showcased by the transformation are interpreted differently amongst the residents.

20In these excerpts, “shelling beans”, a characteristic activity of daily dinner preparation in Turkish society, refers to the woman’s role in daily household chores and also her rural identity: the inhabitant in question does not see herself enjoying the swimming pool for its normal leisure use, as a facility open to the benefit of the whole condominium, but sees it as a facility for “modern, urban women” – so, not herself. Thus, she considers the only usefulness of the swimming pool as a body of water, to be at most enjoyed for its pleasant landscape, as if it were a lake or a river in her countryside, in front of which to sit and do household chores. These images and social representations of the modern urban lifestyle envisioned by the transformation and the potential future residents of new the condominiums to be constructed provide us with clues highlighting the gendered perception of the project.

2.2. Gendered uses of external spaces in everyday life

21An important point to note in order to understand the appropriation of space in Fikirtepe lies in a real porosity between public and private spaces, like most informal neighborhoods. The outside of the houses as well as the use and appropriation of public spaces are significant for the neighborhood lifestyle. That is to say, in Fikirtepe, the everyday living spaces are not only inside the houses, as one can imagine for the western urban modes of living, but in fact encompasses the whole neighborhood, because the inhabitants dwell and reside in the neighborhood as a whole – the everyday life takes place mostly on the streets.

22On the use of the surrounding spaces of the gecekondu and their importance for the inhabitants were illustrated by our interviews. Indeed, Umut Duyar-Kienast highlights this particularity in the informal neighborhoods :

The immediate environment of gecekondu neighborhoods provides a place for the socialization of their inhabitants, especially for women. Due to the variety and possibilities for appropriation of space, the use value of the immediate environment in gecekondu settlements is high. On the contrary, the apartment houses and their immediate environment, which replace the gecekondu in accordance with the improvement plans have a lower use-value. [Duyar-Kienast, 2005, pp. 71–72]

23Furthermore, this difference in emotional investment to the neighborhood depending on gender is also argued by Erman: during her fieldwork among the female inhabitants of a gecekondu settlement in Ankara, the author expresses that women use the spaces between the houses by appropriating them as if they were extensions of their housing environment, and notes that indeed “this intensive use of the outdoor spaces in the proximate neighborhood by women is observed in various other societies, such as Lebanon (Joseph, 1978), Greece (Hirschon, 1985) and Chile (Segovia, 1994).” [1996, p. 771]. Similarly, Essahel describes, through her fieldwork in the precarious neighborhoods in the Rabat metropolitan area of Morocco, the spatial practices of everyday life for women: chatting in front of doorsteps with other neighbors and children, hanging laundry to dry on a line between buildings [2011, p. 74].Therefore, a transformation of this spatial configuration will have significant consequences for neighborhood women, who will no longer be able to continue these spatial practices in their everyday life.

24In fact, the inhabitants created their living spaces based on their expectations and needs in daily life: such as having a garden to plant fruit trees and vegetables, planning balconies to watch people passing by on the street, or placing sofas on the street in front of their houses. These spatial practices, directly in line with the neighborhood ties, are made possible by the physical configuration of the gecekondu neighborhood. However, the urban transformation project will change this architectural arrangement, thus, will render difficult this close proximity between neighbors. The area subject to the transformation project is made up of narrow streets in a grid-plan and terraced-house type buildings, but the project will consist of demolishing these small stand-alone houses in order to construct high-rise apartment blocks and the new urban planning design will not permit these types of social configurations based on proximity. In addition to this, balconies are a very important part of sociability in inner-city neighborhoods but in the new buildings they will not be present. The following photograph (Figure 3) illustrates the significant contrast between the existing urban fabric (seen in front, the small house with balconies) and the new blocks that are being built (seen in the background, the high-rise condominium block).

2.3. Sociability between territorial anchorage and affective links

25We have pointed out that during an urban renewal project, the social fabric of the neighborhood and community networks are undeniably impacted. In this context, the perception of women and men in regards to the (re)construction of their social relationships following an urban transformation is different. The answers we obtained during our interviews with a young married couple that owned a small convenience store in the neighborhood demonstrate these disparities in sociability between men and women. In their convenience store, we ask them about how their friendships and neighborly ties were impacted by the ongoing urban transformation project. Both standing behind the cash register, serving people coming in and going out, the husband, Ziya, is the first to answer: “Well, yes, obviously we’re going to miss the neighborhood relationships but it’s not the end of the world. It happens. It’s no reason to oppose to this project. We can move and do other things.” he says. His wife, Nisa, on the other hand, jumps in and wants to us to know that it will not be the same for her:

“Well he says that, but women and men do not have the same sociability. Us women socialize a lot with our (female) neighbors, by meeting for coffee and going to each other’s houses. But men, it is through other places that they meet people and form social ties. So necessarily how men and women are affected by the transformation is not the same. For example, when we move from here, he (pointing to her husband) will live it differently than I will. I like my neighbors and I am attached to them, but he will have the opportunity to meet other people when he goes to the mosque, to work...”

26We therefore found that for women, the internal community circles in the neighborhood are a fundamental reference point that constitutes place attachment. In the event of a move or even a change in living arrangements (in this case, the construction of new condominiums), the loss of neighborhood relationships is very difficult for the women, who rely heavily on their close neighbors. For them, the female circle that they create with their neighbors is something that takes time and effort, and not something that they can replace easily by “starting over” in another neighborhood. This role of gecekondus as a place for socialization (and even mutual support) for women is also emphasized by Erdi, who expresses that the gecekondu acts as a “vital space socially and collectively constructed, playing sometimes the role of a therapy place with other women. Having no choice to live with rules imposed by the society, women consider the space of gecekondu as an intimate space where they could confide in other women, socialise, help each other.” [2018, p. 103].

27This is also directly related to the use of spaces, forms and functions common in the practices of the inhabitants. In the gecekondu neighborhoods, like in Fikirtepe, women help each other out and even do some household chores together. During our fieldwork, we observed that neighbors shared childcare together during the day, looking after each other’s children, sometimes prepared vegetables together for winter by drying them on a line in between houses, or just shared a cup of Turkish coffee by taking out chairs and tables to the street. Therefore, for these women, the architectural and spatial transformation of the neighborhood equals the loss of these social ties on which they rely considerably for everyday survival. Men, on the other hand, are considered to build their socialization outside the immediate circle of the neighborhood, or often through their professional encounters. In this context, even though they too express a strong sense of belonging and attachment to the neighborhood, this is manifested differently from women. Thus, the experience of urban transformation is lived differently and does not have the same meaning for men.

28These differences in gendered points of view can help us question what informality induces in everyday lived spaces - both in practices and in feelings or imaginaries of the inhabitants. We have found that as an example of “informalized production of space” [Roy, 2011, p. 233], gecekondu neighborhoods brought women together and created social support networks. Similar to the case of favela neighborhoods pointed out by Perlman, gecekondu settlements actually create “a tightly knit community in which reciprocal favors mitigated hardship” [2004, p. 17], and in this, neighborhood relations are an important factor. In our fieldwork, we have seen that the morphology of the neighborhood and the social production of space were especially important for women and children of Fikirtepe, as seen in the following figure. The narrow streets, houses with facing views and balconies that allow chit-chat between neighbors or looking after children playing in the street, create physical and social proximity and sense of community.

3. Social reproduction of gender roles in Fikirtepe

3.1.Gendered division of labor and social roles in gecekondu neighborhoods

29The main reasons for this distinction seem to lie largely in the relationship they have with mobility: Men rely less on their immediate neighbors (i.e., next-door neighbors, neighbors in terraced houses) than women, and form relationships with other residents they meet elsewhere in the neighborhood (e.g., in kahve, predominantly male coffee shops, or barber shops, etc.). Therefore, men have more places that they visit in everyday life, giving them the opportunity to run in different circles. In contrast, women, who travel less far from their homes, form closer relationships with their neighbors who live in the immediate vicinity of their homes. It is this gendered difference in mobility and proximity that helps explain why men feel they have “more opportunities” to form social relationships than women.

30In this sense, to understand the concept of women who “depend” on their immediate surroundings to create social relationships, neighborhood relationships take on greater importance especially in gecekondu settlements. Pointing to the cognitive and affective dimensions of neighborhood ties, Meegan and Mithell argue that "[t]here is also evidence that for certain groups—the elderly, ethnic minorities, the unemployed, women and children—the neighbourhood has heightened importance. They are more ‘neighbourhood-dependent’." [2001, p. 2174]. Similarly, Knox and Pinch suggest that some groups in the urban society, being less “mobile” and more vulnerable have a greater need for the social ties that develop with neighbors: “the residential neighbourhood continues to provide much raw material for social life, especially for relatively immobile groups such as the poor, the aged and mothers with young children” [2014, p. 161].

31Almost all of our women interviewees were homemakers or women working in undeclared jobs (such as house cleaners) who spent most of their time near their housing environment. Analyzing this division of labor, Erman attests to this socialization differentiation through gendered and spatialized roles: “The housing environment easily becomes a major dimension of self-identity in the case of women. [...] Men can find other ways of defining themselves, such as in terms of the jobs they hold or the places that they use daily. But for women, particularly for those who spend almost all of their time in the housing environment, this is hard to achieve.” [Erman, 1996, p. 773]. In fact, Hancock points out that “feminist studies show that women lead spatially more constrained lives than men because of their exclusion from the public realm, justified by their supposedly ’natural’ association with the home, education of the children, all this work of social reproduction, unpaid and therefore devalued, even though it is essential.” [2002, p. 258]. This point can explain the belonging to the home and differentiated attachment of women and men to living spaces, thus explaining their attitudes towards their regeneration.

3.2. “My man knows better” : internalization of low involvement in decision-making processes?

32Another point is the more distant position of women in the decision-making processes of the transformation project. During our fieldwork, where we visited several neighborhood associations in Fikirtepe that have been founded for the purpose of the transformation project, we practically have not come across any women physically present in the association’s premises. The offices and headquarters of the associations that we were able to access were almost exclusively occupied by men.

33What is significant to note here is that this absence of neighborhood women in the urban regeneration associations does not reflect the overall place of women in the community organizing circles. In fact, Fikirtepe women, much like other women in other gecekondu neighborhoods, do actively participate and create solidarity and community, fostering relationships between neighborhood members. However, when it comes to concertation processes for the urban transformation project in Fikirtepe, we have found that women were much more hesitant to get involved in the discussions, hinting that “these kind of important decisions” pass by men rather then by them. For example, when we asked about they thought the project was progressing (the expected date of their move, whether they had found another house in the meantime, and whether they had already signed the contracts with the land developer) Selma and her sister-in-law Fatma, both in their twenties, replied that they simply did not know: “Ah, don’t ask me. My husband knows all that, he is the one who goes to the information meetings, he is the one who follows the process. I wouldn’t know. You should ask men these things.” The level of involvement and engagement in decision-making processes undoubtedly contributes to the feeling of inclusion and, therefore, plays a role in the perception of the urban transformation experience. Women’s views on the project and on the way it is carried out may differ from those of men, who are in fact more physically present in meetings and decisions.

34We consider urban transformation as a process that takes place over time and space. Rather than a clearly defined and executed linear process, by nature, we argue that it has an iterative development. This process is punctuated by several key stages that mark the evolution of the transformation of the neighborhood in question: from the moment when the simple idea of a potential development project in a given neighborhood enters into the discussions of the political agenda, to the moment when the project is presented to the public, to the inauguration and the launch of the construction work, to the finalization of the constructions and the beginning of life in the newly built apartments... The process is far from linear and most often filled with various meanders of the field, sometimes resulting in sequences of negotiations between the inhabitants and the real estate promoters on the terms and conditions of the project.

35The whole process of transformation then generates several actions or key moments that can have an impact on the households affected by the project: having to estimate the value of one’s property (not only in purely financial terms but also in terms of what one’s home is “worth” in abstract terms, referring to the register of emotional ties), having to prepare for a move elsewhere during the period of the demolition-reconstruction, having to attend to concertation meetings with the project managers, having to deal with sales contracts and other technical points... All of these matters do not have the same bearing on women of the neighborhood as they do on men. This plays into the perception of the experience by gender.

3.3. Empowerment and capacity-building role of the transformation process

36However, far from painting a rather “passive” picture of the inhabitants, we would most definitely note that during our fieldwork, a gradual yet very powerful awareness took place since the beginning of the project about ten years ago.

37We argue that proximity, whether in perceived or in absolute terms, to the city center contributes to the feeling of integration into the urban life. In this sense, being able to go easily to downtown, being well connected by means of public transport to be able to access the urban services in the heart of the city is part of the appreciation of the “right to the city” in the Lefebvrean sense [Lefebvre, 2013] as opposed to the feeling of being isolated on the urban fringe. Moreover, this is linked with the concept of urban marginality, at times presenting itself as the feeling of being outcast from the “real urban lifestyle” of downtown for the dwellers of slum neighborhoods.

38For the case of Fikirtepe, and other gecekondu neighborhoods of the Turkish context, we interpret the right to the city of Lefebvre as a right to belong, a right to decide the uses of the neighborhood, and a right to be engaged – meaning the inhabitants can be as much involved as they like in the collective and personal uses of their housing environment, be it in their everyday practices, in their sense of identity as well as the economic and administrative decisions regarding the urban transformation. In this sense, we propose that “the right to belong” (referring to the perception of identity as a person who feels that she or he has a place in the city, the feeling of being welcome and accepted in the urban lifestyle) and “the right to be involved” (referring to the agency that the inhabitants can have on their neighborhood, having a voice in matters of local life), stand out as the most crucial ones explaining the “right to the city” in gecekondu neighborhoods. And these notions take on a different level of importance in the case of women, who experience intersectionality.

39For women from the distant rural provinces of Anatolia who move to Fikirtepe after marriage, moving to the metropolis can be perceived as intimidating. As the men acquire their bearings quickly as a result of their professional lives outside the neighborhood, and as the women are more dependent on their immediate housing environment, the women of Fikirtepe have only gradually learned how to be connected to the city’s networks. Neriman, who have constructed their small house with a garden “with their own hands” that they have been living since 1962, with her mother and extended family tells us:

“When I was young, a newly-wed bride, we [she and the other residents] were convinced that Kadıköy (the city center) was far away from here, that it was difficult to get there alone as women. It’s only later on that I realized that the central avenue where the buses and public transport pass by was indeed very close - right under our nose! [laughs] Can you imagine, for years we had thought we lived isolated whereas all of the buses on this avenue go to Kadıköy and it takes just a few minutes!”

40In the same vein, the urban marginality is another notion that presents itself in a nuanced way. Fikirtepe being in the city-center, situated in very close proximity with well-off neighborhoods of Istanbul, it is the social marginality and integration to the larger urban dynamics, lying more in the perceptions and imaginaries, that constitutes the issue. In that sense, it is not the immediate geographic distance, as it can be in the case of gecekondu neighborhoods situated in the outskirts of cities, isolating them with the lack of transport structures, but it is mostly the social distance that qualifies Fikirtepe being “in the margin”. It is in the eyes of other istanboulites and also in the self-perception of its own inhabitants that “being from Fikirtepe” is perceived as a marginality, so the marginality is mostly in the social representations and not in the physical geographical distance of the neighborhood. Therefore, analyzing the experiences of women and men in Fikirtepe, we had a better understanding of how the concept of urban informality and marginality effect everyday life in terms of practices as well as perceptions and the imaginaries associated with gecekondus.

41We can thus argue that the whole process of the urban transformation brought about an empowerment [Bacqué and Biewener, 2013], a collective and individual emancipation of neighborhood women, touching on civic engagement. Indeed, during one of our interviews by the end of our fieldwork, Sena, a young Fikirtepe woman who owns a small handmade crafts business and is active in charity bazaars of the municipality, tells us: “Don’t listen to what the men are saying, I’ll tell you our version (of the project)”, hinting that women were able to perceive certain elements and drawbacks that went unnoticed by men who were too preoccupied.

42By taking into account the entire process of the transformation project through the years, from the inception to its implementation, we can see that the dwellers have gained certain civic capacities and acquired various social skills during their journey. First of all, from the first steps towards the implementation of a development operation, we can count negotiation as one of the most important skills acquired by the inhabitants. As Berry-Chikhaoui and Deboulet point out, in the Global South and especially concerning informal neighborhoods, the sheer ability of the slum dwellers to be able situate themselves in front of official institutional interlocutors is particularly important in the context of urban planning situations initiated as a “top-down” approach [2002, p. 83]. They argue that particularly the ability to conduct negotiations with real estate developers and construction companies for these modest populations constitute a great civic capacity. During the exchanges in the neighborhood and the meetings in the offices, through the “block representatives” (a resident chosen as a spokesperson for each block to represent the voices of its inhabitants) or directly in person in-situ, the inhabitants of Fikirtepe have had the experience of taking a position on the modalities of the project, debating the clauses in the contracts and making decisions as stakeholders. In this way, they acquired “social skills (situating themselves in a universe of rules) and communicational skills (trying to gain respect in transgression and to enforce certain common principles)” [ibid., p.75].

43For these acquired social and technical skills, we can point out a learning process for the inhabitants, a development of the power to act and a widening of the repertoire of actions. This is illustrated by the active participation of women to certain artistic and original protest performances, such as Leke Fikirtepe, an initiative to contest the shortcomings and problems during the implementation process of the urban transformation project. In fact, in her research in the cities of Algiers, Rabat and Ankara, Semmoud [2020] emphasizes the awareness and mobilization mechanisms of women in lower-income neighborhoods, asserting their place in the urban transformation process and their right to the city.

Conclusion

44In this article, we have analyzed the how the urban transformation project of Fikirtepe entailed distinct outcomes for women and men living in the neighborhood. Our fieldwork in this working-class neighborhood going through radical social and spatial change, illustrated that these differences in perception of the urban renewal had multiple reasons.

45We have found the socialization to be a main defining element in explaining the experience of women and men in the neighborhood. As Bayard-Çan [2011] demonstrates, neighbor relations, especially for women constitute the main pillar of urban neighborhood life in Turkey. In this sense, the types of social ties between inhabitants, namely the everyday social interactions with other neighbors based on mutual help, to be a large determinant factor in the perception the urban transformation.

46In regards to attachment and affective links, we noticed that women had different place-making strategies than men, and the nature of their emotional investment to the neighborhood was distinct, which consequently determined their perception of urban renewal. Furthermore, what “home” meant as well as what “being urban” signified for them were different, which ultimately determined how women and men were affected by this transformation project. As Erman [1996] shows in her fieldwork in Ankara, the individual and collective sense of space is particularly important for women with rural-to-urban backgrounds, just as our case of Fikirtepe in Istanbul.

47Our findings also pointed out that these differences were mostly due to the social reproduction of traditional gender roles from the rural-urban lifestyle standpoint. In fact, we have seen in our fieldwork, that just as Coutras argues, the mental representations about gender roles were important in explain the gendered perception of space in everyday practices, since “beyond the unequal distribution of tasks, women’s experiences differed from those of men, and the social logics involved in spatial frequentation varied from one to the other.” [1989, p. 115]. We have found that groups that have different needs and uses for the urban space present different emotional value of transformation.

48Another factor contributing to the perception of urban renewal was the level of implication in the decision-making process. At the beginning of our fieldwork, we have noticed a relative absence of women in neighborhood associations, accompanied by a hesitance of attending concertation meetings regarded as a “man’s job”. However, comprehended as a long and iterative process, the urban transformation has brought about a significant capacity-building element [Berry-Chikhaoui and Deboulet, 2002] in civic and social skills, and ultimately contributed to women reclaiming their right to the city in Fikirtepe neighborhood, in the lines of empowerment [Bacqué and Biewener, 2013].

49The concept of gender, in our research, is socially and spatially contextual. The intersection of class and gender were a pivotal part of our understanding as we have chosen to analyze the case of rural-to-urban migrant populations in a gecekondu neighborhood. Overall, our research can bring a new insight on social dynamics of inhabitants faced with an urban transformation operation and can contribute to further comprehension of the spatial dynamics of gender relations when it comes to appropriation of space in informal neighborhoods.