Ankara Araştırmaları Dergisi (Dec 2018)
Re-Creating Nostalgia: Urban Culture in the Citadel, Hamamönü and Hamamarkası Neighbourhoods of Ankara
Abstract
Conservation, renovation, restoring and urban regeneration activities have been carried out in the historic centre of Ankara, in Ankara Citadel since 2007 and right beside it, in Hamamönü both by local government and investors from the public sector and small-scale enterprises. Hamamarkası region has been the last episode of this process. These activities construct spaces for the consumption and demands of the tourists as well as urban travellers and create a new nostalgia culture based on the phenomenon of authenticity by means of aestheticisation practices. Local ties of belonging which weaken with modernization of globalization come to the fore again and become determining in the production and consumption phases of nostalgia culture. The aim of this study is to examine the formation of the nostalgia culture in these historic regions of Ankara and the diversities that have been produced within it by several actors. Based on the fieldwork comprising the enterprises like cafés, restaurants, antique shops, art galleries, art studios, boutique hotels in the regions, the study presents the repercussions of social memory, traditions, perceptions and longings of the past in the urban culture of Ankara. In the light of these data, it is seen that in these three regions different nostalgia cultures are formed and the emerging cultures are both influenced by neo-liberal globalization and the prevailing political dynamics in Turkey, particularly by the policy of neo-Ottomanism which has been effective in the last ten years.
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