CBS Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

XX. yüzyılın başlarına yani daha yüz yıl öncesine kadar insanoğlunun zihni, mekân odaklı düşünmeye alışık idi. Şehirler, yollar ve her türlü yapı inşa edilirken yerin mekânsal-topografik uygunluğuna bakılır; her türlü gündelik işte mesafeler ve mekânsal imkanlar öncelikle dikkate alınırdı. XX. yüzyılda mekân, tarihî, sosyo-politik ve iktisadi analizlerde bu ana belirleyiciliğini kaybetti ve hatta ihmal edilebilecek bir faktör olarak görüldü. 1960'lardan itibaren ise mekânın yeniden keşfi (spatial turn) olarak adlandırılan bir dönem başladı. Mekânın sembolik değeri, mekân üzerindeki politika biçimleri, mekânın tarihsel süreçlerde sosyal olarak üretimi ve yeni-den üretimi gibi kavramsallaştırma ve sorular tartışıldı, mekân odaklı olarak gündelik tarih pratikleri çalışıldı ve sosyo-ekonomik yapı ve eğilimlerle mekânın ilişkileri araştırıldı. Bu süreç, bir mekân olarak şehir çalışmalarını, tarihçilikte mekân odaklı değerlendirmeleri ve özellikle şehir tarihi, sanat ve mimarlık tarihi ve tarihsel coğrafya çalışmalarını yakından etkilemiştir. Makalede mekânın değişen algısı ve bu sürecin Osmanlı şehir tarihçiliğine yansıması üzerinde durulacaktır. 1990 sonrası Osmanlı şehir tarihi çalışmalarının ivmesi değerlendirilerek mekân ve şehir odağında sosyal bilim, tarih ve coğrafya alanındaki kesişmelere dikkat çekilecektir. Os-manlı şehir kaynaklarından (vakıf, sicil, avarız ve kefalet kayıtları) verilecek örneklerle yeni dönem şehir tarihçiliğinin diğer ilim sahaları ile etkileşiminin verimli sonuçlarına vurgu yapı-lacak ve Osmanlı şehirleri için sosyal-mekansal tarih yaklaşımı önerisinde bulunulacaktır.

Abstract
Almost a hundred-year ago, everybody is used to think spatially while constructing cities and any buildings as well as deciding wars and establishing trade networks. However, spatially thinking lost its priority in time in analyses of historical, socio-political, and economic issues. Nevertheless, a new approach has appeared since the 1960s, which came to be known as “the spatial turn.” This led, first, to rethink the symbolic meaning of space, space politics, and production and reproduction of space in different socio-historical conditions and, second, to study daily practices and socio-historical structures from the spatial point of view. Since then, new types of studies have affected and reconstructed many disciplines such as urban history, arts and architectural history, and historical geography. This article evaluates the trends in urban historical studies in Turkey after the 1990s considering the spatial-turn and interactions among socio-historical and geographical approaches and methods. In pursuit of interdisciplinary endeavors among these disciplines, this article suggests using socio-spatial historical approach giving some examples from the Ottoman cities -derived from Ottoman primary sources such as waqfiyas, the sijils, and the tax records- indicating exploratory methods and analyses leading us to new questions and answers in Otto-man urban history.

Extended Abstract

Almost a hundred-year ago, everybody is used to think spatially while con-structing cities and any buildings as well as deciding wars and establishing trade networks. In history in general people were taking care of the topo-graphical features of and the distances among the areas in order to make decisions about their daily routines. Even in the early twentieth century, for in-stance Alfred T. Mahan and Halford J. Mackinder who have been famous geographer and political scientists developed terminologies of “heartland” and “geopolitics” focusing on the determining role of geography and regions in world history and politics. However, the space or spatially thinking was neglected or even lost its priority in the decision-making processes and analyses in historical, socio-political, and economic issues with the beginning of the twentieth century.

The technological developments in transportation and communication areas have led to time-space compression in the human world since the eighteenth century onwards. The first result of these developments was on the spatially thinking in the daily activities and then on the cities. Although we consider mostly the 19th and 20th centuries as the urbanization centuries, these two centuries should be evaluated at the same time the spatial-free or the most neglected centuries of the cities letting alone the gar-den-city, anti or counter city, and the conservative attitudes or movements to protect the current situation of the cities both in the world and in Turkey as in the cases of such as Süheyl Ünver and İbrahim Hakkı Konyalı’s works.

There were some other exceptional endeavors and attitudes between the 1920s and 1950s which have a spatial and urban awareness such as Chicago School but a new period has begun since the 1960s, which came to be known as “the spatial turn.” This period has led, first, to rethink the symbolic meaning of space, space politics, and production and reproduction of space in different historical and social conditions and, second, to study daily practices and socio-historical structures and trends from the spatial point of view. From Henri Lefebvre’s book entitled Le Droit à la ville in 1968 to Edward Soja’s Postmetropolis: Critical studies of cities and regions in 2015, many social scientists including David Harvey have been written on these issues. Since then, this new period and new types of studies in general have affected and recon-structed many disciplines that are related to the spatial awareness such as ur-ban studies, urban history, arts and architectural history, and historical geography.

The new attitudes, approaches, and trends in social sciences and history have gone hand in hand with urban and spatial history since the 1960s. It was not coincidence for the two famous academic periodicals one, Journal of Urban History, from the USA and the other, Urban History, from the UK to publish their first articles in 1974. The similar shifting trends – though a little bit late- have seen in Turkey as well. Our survey about the urban historical studies after the 1950s in the Turkey indicates over two thousand studies, 80 percent of which were published after the 1990s. Comparing all studies in Turkish history, it is safe to argue that the spatial turn in Turkish history has been very clear in the last thirty years in Turkey. Here the question is how this quantitative shift in urban historical studies could be made more valuable with new approaches and methodologies. The article suggests one here a “socio-spatial historical approach” for Ottoman urban history. This transdisciplinary approach requires to melt questions and methodologies of different disciplines, especially those of sociology and geography into urban history pot. It suggests exploring relational theory and its questions on the one hand and the methodologies used in big data analyses, GIS, and digital humanities, on the other.

The article gives some examples from the huge data derived from a) waqfiyas for the morphology of the cities including properties, their features and neighbors b) from sharia court records for socio-legal lives on the urban space including daily life and activities among people, and c) from tax records for demographical and economic position of the cities in order to show how these huge data interact each other on the urban surface and how an urban historian could analyze and visualize these networks via statistical and GIS tools. These examples show in a very brief way how “socio-spatial approach” could be applied to Ottoman cities, as well.

In short, this article narrates firstly the changes in spatially thinking over time from ancient to the modern times with special reference to the spatial-turn in the 1960s and its effects on urban historical studies. Then the study evaluates the trends in urban historical studies in Turkey after the 1990s considering the spatial-turn and interactions among social, historical, and geo-graphical approaches and methods on the basis of spaces and cities. In pursuit of interdisciplinary endeavors in this new period and among these disciplines, this article gives some examples from the Ottoman cities -derived from Ottoman primary sources such as waqfiyas, the sharia court records, and the tax records- indicating exploratory methods and analyses leading us to new questions and answers in Ottoman urban history.