Author's note: I thank Professor Paul Stirling and Professor Ahmet Evin for their invaluable comments.

¹ Abu-Lughod, J., “Migrant Adjustment to City Life: The Egyptian Case,” American Journal of Science 67 (07 1961): 22–32Google Scholar; Mangin, W., ed., Peasants in Cities: Readings in the Anthropology of Urbanization (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), 45.Google Scholar

² Perlman, J., The Myth of Marginality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 93–131.Google Scholar

³ For example, McGee, T. G., “Malay Migration to Kuala Lumpur City: Individual Adaptation to the City,” in Migration and Urbanization, ed. Toit, Brian du and Safa, H. I. (Paris: Mouton, 1975), 143–78Google Scholar; Gilbert, Alan and Gugler, Josef, Cities, Poverty and Development: Urbanization in the Third World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 158, 159.Google Scholar

⁴ Translated as “compatriots from the same region” by White, J., Money Makes Us Relatives: Women's Labor in Urban Turkey (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 25.Google Scholar

⁵ It is common to talk in Turkey about the “squatter culture” characterized by its arabesk music, which displays both pessimistic submissiveness and passive rebellion against the city. However, this definition carries with it the problems of an elitist approach—namely, established urbanites lumping together into one category all those who do not fit into their definition of urbanites.

⁶ Tahire, Erman, “The Meaning of City Living for Rural Migrant Women and Their Role in Migration: The Case of Turkey,” Women's Studies International Forum 20 (03–04 1997): 263–73.Google Scholar

⁷ Stirling, Paul, “Cause, Knowledge, and Change: Turkish Village Revisited,” in Choice and Change, ed. Davis, J. (New York: Athlone Press, 1974), 191–229Google Scholar; Bauer, Janet, “New Models and Traditional Networks: Migrant Women in Tehran,” in Women in the Cities of Asia: Migration and Urban Adaptation, ed. Fawcett, J. T., Khoo, S., and Smith, P. C. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), 269–93.Google Scholar

⁸ The name given to squatter houses in Turkey, it means “built overnight.” The author rented the ground floor of such a house, which had one small room, a tiny kitchen, and a toilet.

⁹ The “apartmentization” of BağÇlar gained momentum after the master plan for the area was completed in 1980.

¹⁰ Alevism (Anatolian Shiis) is a sect in Islam that prescribes more egalitarian relations than mainstream Sunnism. Recent research in Turkey in which the data have been analyzed in terms of different religious sects demonstrates that Sunni gecekondu residents are more conservative, supporting traditional gender roles more often than do the Alevis: Birsen Gökçe, ed., Gecekondularda Ailelerarasi Geleneksel Dayamsmamn Çağdaş Organizasyonlara Donusumu (The Transformation of the Interfamilial Traditional Solidarity in Gecekondu Settlements to Modern Organizations) (Ankara: Undersecretariat of Women and Social Services, 1993), 201. Kemal Karpat (The Gecekondu: Rural Migration and Urbanization [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976], 119–21) found that Alevis formed an egalitarian society which was open to new ideas while preserving the sense of village solidarity and community.

¹¹ See, for example, Gilbert, and Gugler, , Cities, Poverty and Development, 159–61Google Scholar; Duben, Alan, “The Significance of Family and Kinship in Urban Turkey,” in Sex Roles, Family and Community in Turkey, ed. Kağitçibasi, C. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), 73–99Google Scholar; Peter Suzuki, “Village Solidarity Among Turkish Peasants Undergoing Urbanization,” Science 132 (September 1960): 891.

¹² AyşFxe Ayata, “Gecekondularda Kimlik Sorunu, Dayamsma Oruntuleri ve Hemsehrilik” (The Question of Identity, Support Networks and Hemşehrilik in Squatter Settlements), Toplum ve Bilim 51/52 (fall 1992-winter 1991): 89–101;Google ScholarSuzuki, Peter, “Peasants Without Plows: Some Anatolians in Istanbul,” Rural Sociology 31 (12 1966): 428–38.Google Scholar

¹³ Erder, Sema, Istanbul'a bir Kent Kondu: Umraniye (Istanbul: Iletisim, 1996), 292–93.Google Scholar

¹⁴ In “Gecekondularda Kimlik Sorunu,” 89–101, Ayata describes this concept as a flexible category of identity whose definition varies in relation to who the others are. In the presence of people from other villages, it becomes “people from our village”; in the presence of people from other towns, it becomes “people from our town”; and in the presence of people from other regions, it becomes “people from our region.”

¹⁵ In her empirical research carried out in a gecekondu district in Ankara mainly inhabited by people from the cities of Erzurum and Kars, Ayata (”Gecekondularda Kimlik Sorunu,” 97) found the other requirements of membership in the hemsehri network of those from Erzurum to be belonging to the same Islamic sect (Sunni), speaking the same language (Kurdish), and being from the same region of the country (Eastern Anatolia). In the author's own research, the focus was not on these categories. Yet the exploratory nature of the research enabled these categories to emerge. The relatively large number of people in the research who identified themselves as Alevis (about 46.5%), which the author found as she became more embedded in the gecekondu community, revealed the significance of “Alevism versus Sunnism” as an identity category among rural migrants. But in contrast to Ayata's findings, which pointed to the cleavage of different ethnic and religious groups in different parts of the settlement and the tension among them, this author observed the efforts of many women to play down these differences. This may be due to the relatively heterogeneous nature of the settlement. As some people who once lived in the same community with their relatives and fellow villagers moved to apartments, new people from various parts of the country moved in. The Kurd-versus-Turk issue emerged only in one case: a woman from Sivas mentioned being a Kurd, and thus having Kurdish (not Turkish) as her native language, as preventing her from considering herself an urbanite.

¹⁶ Ibid., 97.

¹⁷ For example, a woman who moved to the city in her late thirties told her sister-in-law, who had moved to the city right after she got married, where her family had become better off, that she was now an urbanite because her family had sold the land in the village and owned two apartments in the city. The sister-in-law immediately objected, saying that she still considered herself a villager.

¹⁸ Gilbert, and Gugler, , Cities, Poverty and Development, 158, 159.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Köker, Levent, Modernlesme, Kemalizm ve Demokrasi (Modernization, Kemalism and Democracy) (Istanbul: Iletisim, 1993), 11–23.Google Scholar

²⁰ Ibid., 223.

²¹ Eisenstadt, Shmuel Noah, Patterns of Modernity, 2 vols. (London: Frances Pinter Publishers, 1987), Beyond the West, 2:119.Google Scholar

²² W.Frey, Frederick, “Patterns of Elite Politics in Turkey,” in Political Elites in the Middle East, ed. Lenczowski, George (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1975)Google Scholar, 43, cited by Turan, liter, “The Evolution of Political Culture in Turkey,” in Modern Turkey: Continuity and Change, ed. Evin, Ahmet (Opladen: Leske Verlag and Budrich GmbH, 1984), 105.Google Scholar

²³ Turan, “Evolution of Political Culture,” 105.

²⁴ Boratav, Korkut, Istanbul ve Anadolu'dan Simf Profilleri (Class Profiles from Istanbul and Anatolia) (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfi Yurt Yayinlari, 03 1995), 28–30.Google Scholar

²⁵ The author noticed a tendency among migrants to regard rural people as inferior to urbanites. Here are a couple of examples: “My granddaughter from the village who is visiting me speaks vulgarly like a villager”; “The people in this neighborhood damaged the fountain's pipes. This is no surprise to me. After all, they are originally villagers.”

²⁶ Heper, Metin, Turkiye'de Kent Göçmeni ve Bürokratik Örğütler (Urban Migrants and Bureaucratic Organizations in Turkey) (Istanbul: Ucdal, 1983), 57.Google Scholar

²⁷ The following is what the relatives said about the family: “they are conceited”; “they look down on gecekondu residents”; “they say villagers are backward”; “they are ashamed of their elderly parents who wear shalvars”; “they do not want to share their home and friends with us.”

²⁸ Kandiyoti, Deniz, “Bargaining with Patriarchy,” Gender and Society 2 (1988): 274–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁹ Stirling, “Cause, Knowledge, and Change,” 213.

³⁰ When the author visited one of these women in the gecekondu that she rented, she found her in a run-down room with a little old furniture around, blow-drying her hair in front of a broken mirror. The contrast between the well-dressed young woman with well-groomed looks and the poverty of the place was striking. It reflected the efforts that the woman made to dress well and look good, despite her severe financial problems.

³¹ For example, when the author met one of these women in a neighbor's house, the woman insisted that the author stop by her house on her way back. She insisted that she would bake a cake (this is not common in the gecekondu settlement, because the ingredients are rather costly, and an oven is required). She did, but they could not eat it, because there was a power failure while the cake was baking.

³² Traditional full pants gathered at the ankles.

³³ Sencer Ayata, “Toplumsal Cevre Olarak Gecekondu ve Apartman” (The Squatter House and the Apartment as Social Environments), Toplum ve Bilim 46/47 (summer 1989-fall 1989): 101–27; Mubeccel Kiray, “Apartmanlaşma ve Modern Orta Tabakalar” (Apartmentization and Modern Middle Strata), Cevre 4 (1979): 78.

³⁴ Ayata, “Toplumsal Cevre Olarak,” 114–18.

³⁵ Ibid., 104.

³⁶ Erman, Tahire, “Women and the Housing Environment: The Experiences of Turkish Migrant Women Squatter (Gecekondu) and Apartment Housing,” Environment and Behavior 28 (1996): 764–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁷ Ibid., 786.

³⁸ In the research, there were a couple of women in apartments whose families were very conservative. They were not even allowed to go to the local grocery store by themselves, though it was only a few buildings away.

³⁹ Exchanging votes for title deeds in squatter neighborhoods and sometimes selling their houses to contractors in return for several apartments has made some squatters quite wealthy in a brief period of time.

⁴⁰ The unemployment rate in cities reached 13 percent in April 1994; in October 1995, it was 10 percent: State Institute of Statistics, Statistical Yearbook of Turkey 1996 (Ankara: SIS Publication, 1997), 280; many of the unemployed live in squatter settlements. In metropolitan cities, the wealthiest one-fifth of the population receives 57.2 percent of the national revenue, whereas the poorest one-fifth of the population receives only 4.8 percent of the national revenue: State Institute of Statistics, Statistical Yearbook of Turkey 1996, 629.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Some of them have become quite popular in the music industry through their songs addressing these issues.

⁴² Sencer Ayata, “Varoşlar, Catişma ve Şiddet” (Slums, Conflict and Violence), Gorus (June 1996): 18–22.

⁴³ Erder, Istanbul'a bir Kent Kondu: Umraniye, 291.

⁴⁴ Erder, Sema, Kentsel Gerilim (Urban Tension) (Ankara: Ugur Mumcu Vakfi, 1997), 172.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Ayata, “Varojlar, Catişma ve Şiddet,” 18–22.

⁴⁶ Erder, Kentsel Gerilim, 173.

⁴⁷ Tansi Senyapili, “Economic Change and the Gecekondu Family,” in Sex Roles, 237–48.