Urbanism and Kurdish Mobilization in Diyarbakir, Turkey
A Brown Bag Seminar with Muna Güvenç Ospina Leon
March 4, 2020
Missed the seminar? Watch it here.
In the early 2000s, pro-Kurdish parties in Turkey—banned by the state or denied access to parliament by legal restrictions—worked to preserve squatter settlements (gecekondus) in cities they controlled. This is puzzling because municipalities around the world often work to end urban informality. In this talk, Muna Güvenç Ospina Leon examines how pro-Kurdish municipalities sustained such conditions and used urban planning in Diyarbakır to mobilize Kurdish society and resist state coercion.
Muna Güvenç Ospina Leon is an assistant professor of fine arts at Brandeis and a faculty affiliate of the Crown Center.
Co-sponsored by the Islamic and Middle Eastern studies program