UNVEILING URBAN DISPOSSESSIONS THROUGH A FEMINIST LENS: Social Reproduction, Gentrification and Authoritarian Neoliberal Urbanism

This essay presents a feminist intervention by incorporating feminist theory and ethnography into the examination of gentrification and displacement within authoritarian neoliberal urbanism. It explores the link between gentrification and the systemic crisis of social reproduction and discusses the contribution of feminist ethnography to our understanding of gendered dispossessions during state-led gentrification and displacement. The essay concludes that integrating a social reproduction lens and employing feminist ethnography not only enhances our understanding of gendered dispossessions but also reveals the potential for empowerment in marginalized communities. Making visible the material and affective injustices and daily struggles to pursue social reproduction amidst the dismantling of marginalized lives by state-led gentrification contributes to feminist praxis. Illustrative examples from a longitudinal case study on the nexus of gender and gentrification in Tarlabaşı, Istanbul, are used to support these arguments.