İDEALKENT

Yazarlar: Haktan URAL

Konular:Sosyal

Anahtar Kelimeler:Neoliberalism,Entertainment,Governmentality,Power,Beyoğlu

Özet: Beyoğlu –as a historical leisure zone owing to a convivial urban image due to the fact that the district hosts Istiklal Avenue- is one of the most significant social and cultural hub of the city. On that account, Beyoglu plays an indispensible role in the city’s government regimes that prioritize increasing Istanbul’s competitiveness and attractiveness to attract global flows of capital. In this study, I examine how entertainment life is structured by such urban government regimes in Beyoglu. By utilizing the conceptual tools of governmentality studies, I aim to understand the ways that Technologies of neoliberal government have an influence on nightlife and entertainment venues. I suggest that the neoliberal transformation cultivates and promotes neoliberal subjects in Beyoglu’s entertainment life. In production of such subjects, a complex set of power relations combined by security, juridical and disciplinary apparatuses play a role. In this way, an urban government regime that put forward a vision to establish tourism-based urban economy serving for affluent groups are put into practice in Beyoğlu. This government regime makes the actors of nightlife in Beyoglu responsible to adjust themselves to the precepts of neoliberal economy. For doing so, the actors are responsibilized to have an active and creative relationship with themselves. By that means, the spaces of nightlife serving for affluent groups are liable to extend. Besides, certain legislations and municipal police forces are also prevalent to exercise coercive power over spaces of nightlife that are not conforming to the neoliberal urban economy. From this vantage point, this study argues that neoliberal transformation that permeates into the entertainment life is jointly actualized through disruptive and productive faces of power relations.  

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