The Displacement Story of Yildiz Campus, Istanbul


Creative Commons License

Çiçek C., Aydın E.

2022 AESOP Annual Congress, Tartu, Estonya, 25 - 29 Temmuz 2022, cilt.1, sa.84717, ss.658-660

  • Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Özet Bildiri
  • Cilt numarası: 1
  • Basıldığı Şehir: Tartu
  • Basıldığı Ülke: Estonya
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.658-660
  • Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Variants of displacement are emerging through neoliberal urban policies. Students, who have been referred as displacers to date, have been changed to displacees in our study. We associate the example of displacement on the Yıldız Campus with the term of “neighborhood resources displacement”. It is still a gap that university campuses take the position of being the subject of displacement processes in the literature. Yıldız Technical University (YTU) has two main campuses, Yıldız and Davutpaşa. Yıldız Campus is in the Yıldız district with strong transportation connections in the Istanbul city center, close to the administrative units and adjacent to Yıldız Palace. The main problem of the study is that YTU is both directly and indirectly displaced from the Yıldız Campus where it takes its name. The persistence of the rumor “Yıldız campus is moving” for many years not only causes displacement by disturbing its users, but also paves the way for the campus to remain uninvested as it is seen as an expected end. On the one hand, Yıldız campus is deprived of all kinds of infrastructure investments such as internet, parking, and recreation areas, on the other hand Davutpaşa campus attracts allphysical facilities such as library, technological classrooms, student dormitories and guesthouses. This situation increases the inequality between the two campuses and the students they host. Hence, although the number of Yıldız Campus users seems to be decreasing, the main reason for this situation is that the users are forced to use Davutpaşa campus because of the displacement policies implemented over the infrastructure and superstructure facilities of the campus. It might be very difficult to realize that this is a displacement policy, as it spreads throughout the process. But it is very perilous because it causes users to be inured to this policy. In the study, we adopted a mixed method approach in which quantitative process analysis and qualitative oral history are utilized. Our sample consists of students, academics, and administrative staff. We claim that this displacement policy is related to the increase in the economic values of Yıldız Campus.