Speaker
Description
One of the alarming aspects of the global cities is that social and economic disparities and inequalities are deepened and they accompany with the flourishing informal sector. These inequalities have significant impacts on urban space. One of these places, known as Küçükpazar, is located at the outskirts of the Süleymaniye World Heritage Site in Istanbul. The market area is a small square and located at the intersection of a park, a mosque, a car park, and various shops, with quite distinct characteristics from the other places in the historical peninsula. Küçükpazar market area is operated during the day as a formal market place, and after the sunset, it turns into an informal second-hand goods market place. The practice of selling is allowed to operate in a grey area, straddling the line between what is legal and not. The municipal patrol vehicle waits in the square from early morning until sunset, but the time of absence is vague. The vendors' belongings in their suitcases and bags wait in uncertainty in front of the municipal patrol vehicle, the presence of the vehicle becoming the boundary between the informal and formal in the city. The municipal patrol is aware that those in front of them are vendors and that trade will commence once they depart; however, they refrain from intervening with individuals who have not yet unpacked their goods or set them out for display. The unpredictability is caused not only by the coming and going of the municipal patrol, but also by the uncertainty of when they will arrive to stop the vendors' activities and demand the removal of their goods. This situation shapes the market and sometimes threatens its existence.
Selling second-hand goods in public spaces like streets and squares is commonly viewed as a male-dominated occupation in Türkiye. However, women have also appeared as vendors in the informal marketplaces lately.
Based on in-depth interviews and observations, women vendors’ experiences the market are analyzed at the intersection of gender relations and global city dynamics. The flexibility offered by the second-hand market, in different forms of bargaining, lack of costs such as taxes and rent, absence of fixed working hours and social regulations of the formal workplaces come forward as advantages. On the other hand, being in the marketplace as a vendor does not dissolve the gender prototypes, the uncertainty turns the place into a rather unsafe area of the city, starting at dusk.
This research looks at the interplay of the women vendors’ activities at the Küçükpazar marketplace by investigating the gendered dimensions of informality and appropriation of public spaces at the heart of the global city.
| Keywords | Informal second-hand market place; global city; informality; gender relations; Küçükpazar. |
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| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
