On the dual nature of intra-urban borders: The case of a Romani neighborhood in Istanbul Ozan Karaman a,⇑ , Tolga Islam b,1 a University of Minnesota, Institute for Advanced Study, 131 Nolte Center, 315 Pillsbury Drive S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States b Yildiz Technical University, Urban and Regional Planning Department, 34349 Besiktas, Istanbul, Turkey article info Article history: Received 27 February 2011 Received in revised form 23 August 2011 Accepted 29 September 2011 Available online xxxx Keywords: Borders Gentrification Urban renewal Right to difference Territoriality Narrativity Sulukule, Istanbul abstract This essay questions the nature of intra-urban borders from a politico-ethical point of view. Namely: to what extent are intra-urban borders acceptable at a time of proliferating discourses about a borderless world, and open cities? We discuss this through a case study of Sulukule – a historic neighborhood home to a millennium old Roma community located within the historic city center of Istanbul – in the context of the urban renewal project launched by the local municipality. The often cited ‘‘humanitarian’’ pretext for the renewal project is ‘‘incorporating’’ the Sulukule’s poor Roma community into the city and tearing down the borders demarcating their ghetto. Eventually, this discourse of incorporation served to instigate a rapid episode of gentrification in the area. Offering a critical perspective on the municipality’s renewal project, and through a discussion of the often conflicting premises of the discourses of the ‘‘right to the city’’ and the ‘‘group right to difference,’’ this essay argues that intra-urban borders are ‘‘undecided’’ sep- arators and calls for policy tools that are responsive to the enabling aspects of bordering processes. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction There is a resurgent interest in questions of boundaries. While the traditional geographic literature on borders mostly addressed physical demarcations and barriers (Hartshorne, 1933; Jones, 1943; Kristoff, 1959), since the postmodernist turn of the 1990s there has been a visible expansion of focus so as to incorporate more abstract questions of identity, difference and othering (New- man, 2006; Newman & Paasi, 1998). Referring to biological phe- nomena, Mol and Law (2005, p. 641) explain how boundaries emerge through an entity’s constant resistance to diffusion: In a static fluid without cell walls or other membranes diffusion leads to homogeneity. In a solution all solvents are equally dis- persed. There is no difference. Biology tells us how the cell defends itself against this, against death. It makes difference. An entity is defined by its borders. Yet, there is often not a clear- cut partition that separates the inside from the outside. Especially when it comes to urban social formations such as neighborhoods or districts one generally observes gradients. As such urban bound- aries are ‘‘inchoate;’’ they escape facile designation (Jones, 2009). To capture the fluidity and incompleteness of borders, many geog- raphers have proposed to shift attention from fixed and fully- formed borders to the verb of ‘‘bordering,’’ (Jones, 2009; Newman & Paasi, 1998; Van Houtum & Van Naerssen, 2002) which is under- stood as an ongoing process of regulating mobility of flows (of peo- ple, goods, information) through which distinct places are defined and identified. Thus place-making is a spatial strategy that en- forces control over a place (Sack, 1986); to go back to the cell anal- ogy, it is an act of ‘‘purification.’’ This paper questions the nature of intra-urban borders from a politico-ethical point of view. Namely: to what extent are intra-ur- ban borders acceptable at a time of proliferating discourses about a borderless world, and open cities? We discuss this through a case study of Sulukule – a historic neighborhood within the historic city center of Istanbul, which was until very recently home to a millen- nium old Roma community (Fig. 1). The neighborhood was com- pletely demolished as a part of the urban renewal project launched by the local municipality (i.e. the Fatih Municipality). Our research is based on original qualitative data that was col- lected through participant observation and in-depth interviews over the course of demolitions and evictions in the neighborhood (May 2006–March 2009). Around 60 residents were interviewed for their perceptions of and reactions to the renewal project as well as their understandings of the cultural and political dynamics of the neighborhood. Additionally expert interviews with seven mu- nicipal officials were conducted in an effort to understand their justification of the renewal project and their perceptions of the Roma community of Sulukule. The main overarching objective of 0264-2751/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2011.09.007 ⇑ Corresponding author. Current address: Singapore ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability, 4 Architecture Drive, SDE1#04-1B, 117566 Singapore, Singapore. Tel.: +65 986 094 80. E-mail addresses: karaman@arch.ethz.ch (O. Karaman), tolgaislam@hotmail.com (T. Islam). 1 Tel.: +90 536 6224800. Cities xxx (2011) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Cities journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities Please cite this article in press as: Karaman, O., & Islam, T. On the dual nature of intra-urban borders: The case of a Romani neighborhood in Istanbul. J. Cities (2011), doi:10.1016/j.cities.2011.09.007