Evoking the city’s past, recollecting the citizen’s memory in a post-conflict urban setting: the case of Suriçi, Diyarbakır

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2021-1-06
Kaya, Berçem
In different historical period of times, cities are the subject of the dialectic between destruction and reconstruction. This destruction is threatening the socio-spatial, socio-political character of cities and daily life practices of the locals by destroying the physical setting of the place, which erase traces of the past. This process brings a memory loss in urban places, for the sake of converting the city into the place of dominant ideology or authority. For this reason, during reconstruction processes, it is crucial to put alternative methods that seek to improvise the most proper urban design policies. The city's unique social and spatial settings, architectural elements and monumental structures, which are considered as authentic values that constitute the urban identity and memory, connect the past and future of the city. In addition to this, the importance of testimonies and narratives is emphasized in memory studies as well in process of transferring memories to future generations. Within the scope of this study, it is aimed to reveal the place identity elements that constitute place memory with the narratives of the local people by comparison of pre conflict and post conflict urban settings in case of Diyarbakır, Suriçi, where is currently subjects of massive destruction process due to conflicts occurred in 2015.

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Citation Formats
B. Kaya, “Evoking the city’s past, recollecting the citizen’s memory in a post-conflict urban setting: the case of Suriçi, Diyarbakır,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2021.