Assembling A More-than-human Istanbul

Assembling A More-than-human Istanbul — [İnsandan Öte Bir İstanbul Kurmak]

PhD Dissertation, Özyeğin University, Design, Technology and Society, April 2019 - Ongoing

ABSTRACT

This research constructs design and care as everyday and intertwined phenomena; and aims to understand care-design entanglements through Istanbul’s more-than-human geographies. By tracing the “cat house” [kedi evi] designed and maintained by self-identified animal lover citizens [hayvanseverler] for street cats in the city, this research project aims to understand how interspecies care is practised in the context of Istanbul. Caring for street animals in Istanbul is a tradition that has its roots in the practices of Eastern Roman and Ottoman Empires and passed on to contemporary Turkey. However, this tradition is in conflict with the human-centered, street animal-free, modern cityscape of the Global North. Questions about how this care is designed in a landscape that includes the parks and windows of the city despite various non-human material actors, and how design is a caring and nurturing practice, are explored within the framework of the dissertation project.

RESEARCH METHODS

Constructivist Grounded Theory (Charmaz, 2006), Situational Analysis (Clarke, 2005; Clarke et al., 2015)

DOCTORAL MONITORING COMMITTEE

Özlem Özkal, Supervisor

Design, Technology and Society Graduate Program
Özyeğin University

Melike Şahinol, Co-Supervisor
Human, Medicine and Society Research Cluster
Orient-Institut Istanbul, Max Weber Foundation

Ayşe Hazar Köksal, Internal Member of Doctoral Monitoring Committee
Design, Technology and Society Graduate Program Coordinator
Özyeğin University

Yekta Bakırlıoğlu, External Member of Doctoral Monitoring Committee
Senior Lecturer in Design Management & Postgraduate Director of Studies for School of Design, Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, Lancaster University

LIST OF SCHOLARLY OUTPUT

Below is a list of original publications I wrote between the years 2019 – 2021 as part of my dissertation research. Since I started conducting fieldwork in early 2019 and throughout the writing of my dissemination, I have had multiple opportunities to disseminate my work, some of which became separate publications. These publications are a documentation of my exploratory Grounded Theory research trajectory, where I focus on the matter from different angles and in different formats for different audiences throughout the course of my study. Data I have collected such as photographic documentations of cat houses or field-notes may appear in different publications, interpreted from a fresh perspective.

GRANTS

İnsanın Dışında, Tasarımın Ötesinde: Sokak Hayvanları, Geçici Birleştirmeler, Tasarım Aktivizmi [Other than Human, Beyond Human: Street Animals, Temporary Assemblages, Design Activism] - 1 of 12 recipients of MAD research grant in 2019 of c.$900. (August 2019 - February 2020)

Public talk at Center for Spatial Justice.

BOOKS / MONOGRAPHS

Taşdizen, B. (2020). Imagining a more-than-human Istanbul [İnsandan Öte Bir İstanbul Düşlemek]. Istanbul: Mekânda Adalet Derneği [Center for Spatial Justice].

BOOK CHAPTERS

Taşdizen, B. (2020). İnsanın Dışında, Tasarımın Ötesinde: Sokak Kedileri, Geçici Birleştirmeler ve Tasarım Aktivizmi. In A. Turanlı, M. Şahinol, & A. Aydınoğlu (Eds.), Türkiye’de STS: Bilim ve Teknoloji Çalışmalarına Giriş. Istanbul: İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Taşdizen, B. (2021). İnsandan Öte Bir İstanbul Düşlemek: Sakat Şehrin Kedi Evleri. MAD Journal 2, 124-133.

ESSAYS

Taşdizen, B. (2020). Knitting Unruly Kinships through Design, a World-making Assemblage. EASST Review, 39(02).
Taşdizen, B. (2021). Feral (Im)mobilities. In İ. Burçak (Ed.), Locomotion (pp:40-48). Berlin: Well Gedacht Publishing.

INVITED TALKS

“Tasarım-Bakım Dolanıklıkları: Alanyazının Konuştukları”, at Poedat Gelecek Çalışmaları, 28 August 2021.
“Tasarımı İnsan Olmayanlara Açmak: Sahanın Söyledikleri”, at Poedat Gelecek Çalışmaları, 28 August 2021.
“Care as Design: Urban Cats and Affordance Assemblages of Istanbul”, at ITU Industrial Design, Contemporary Issues in Design by Çiğdem Kaya, 2021.

INTERVIEWS

“Feline Entanglements – Commons, Compassion, and Care”, Interview with Milan Vukašinović of ANAMED.

PRESENTATIONS

“Assembling A More-than-human Istanbul: A Methodological Reflection”, on 28 March 2022, in The Urban Ecologies Workshop Series: Workshop One, Methodological Expositions, hosted by the Urban Ecologies Research Group at the University of Cambridge, online.

“Dis/media Assemblages Surrounding the Care for Street Cats of Istanbul”, on 19 August 2020, in EASST + 4S Joint Conference: Locating and Timing Matters: Significance and Agency of STS in Emerging Worlds, 18— 21 August 2020, online.

“İnsanın Dışında, Tasarımın Ötesinde: Sokak Hayvanları, Geçici Birleştirmeler ve Tasarım Aktivizmi”, on 28 December 2019, in MAD Araştırma Çalıştayı, organized by Mekanda Adalet Derneği / Center for Spatial Justice, in Istanbul, Turkey, 27-28 December 2019.