Damla Isiklilar

E-Mail: damla.isiklilar@gmail.com

Vita

Damla Işıklılar is a Ph.D. candidate in European Urban Studies at Bauhaus University Weimar. Her doctoral research focuses on the newly developed urban praxis by means of socio-spatial outlook to urban refugees in Ankara, Turkey. Her academic interests consist of urban sociology, urban politics, critical social theory, social history, urban rights, social production and politics of built environment. She is awarded as a DAAD scholarship holder.

She holds Master’s degree of City Planning with a high-honor standing from Urban Design Master Program in Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree as being the 1st ranking student of the Department of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture of Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey. 

Abstract

With the global changes and urban social movements, new urban codes and new public space practice and praxis are emerging. While the world is dealing with increasing numbers of refugees, who have become one of the major challenges of the 21st century, nearly all human beings have confronted with significant changes in urban environment. Particularly in Turkey, both the citizens and newcomers are facing with the socio-spatial alterations. Turkey has been accepted as a critical partner for Syrian asylum seekers due to its geographical position. While urban environments are affected by this social trend and with the new term “Urban Refugee”, as urban designers we need to answer the new urban questions under the light of the newly developed agora having a new social inclusion. In this sense, this thesis focuses on the recent and predicted future socio-spatial situation of Syrian urban refugees within the case of specific neighborhoods such as Önder and Örnek Neighborhoods, which are called as Syrian Neighborhoods hereafter, in Ankara, Turkey. In this context, the evolution and the approaches on different forms of public sphere in Ankara is being discussed.

Keywords

Urban refugees

spatial prxis

heterotopia

differential space

Social Inclusion