The politics of Istanbul's Ottoman heritage in the era of globalism: refractions through the prism of a theme park

Abstract

History is not merely about events which remind of the past, it is also about political struggles in the present. This is particularly so in contemporary cultural markets where 'history' is increasingly produced and disseminated in a host of commercialized forms. This paper focuses on competing 'historical' narratives which circulate across Istanbul's cultural markets, as they mediate between between the past and the ethnographic present of the city. These are 'political' narratives in the sense that they mobilize alternative versions of Istanbul's Ottoman past, from different class locations and address different constituencies.