Husik Ghulyan

This paper discusses the place-renaming policies in the recent two decades in Armenia. By elaborating on the legal and administrative framework for place-renaming in the country and through the analysis of more than 27,000 geographical names and their renaming practices, the paper focuses on the politics of space/place in Armenia in the context of a nation-state-building. By considering discourses, actors and institutions involved in place-renaming, the paper puts its results into the wider context of nationalism and nation-state-building. With a focus on the notion of raison d'état as a practice of governmentality, the abstract space of the nation-state conceived by experts and nationalist discourse on autochthony, the paper elaborates on the production of nation-state-space in Armenia. The contradictory aspects of place-renaming policies and the relations of exclusion and domination (re)produced in the process of conceiving of the nation-state-space in this country are discussed as well.

This article discusses the recent politics of space in Turkey during the rule of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) through a focus on the capital city of Ankara. In order to analyze the recent politics of space in Turkey, the article elaborates upon the recent politics of toponym changes and the discourse over space and place in the Turkish capital. Particular attention is paid to the spatialization of neo-Ottoman, Islamist, and populist discourses and to the production of various representational and counter-representational spaces. One of the key foci of the article is its elaboration on the new Presidential Complex (Cumhurbaşkanlığı Külliyesi) as a case that, in its representational and conceptual aspects, reflects the spatialization of Islamist and populist discourses and symbolizes the recent transformations of social space and the emergent sociospatial order in Turkey.

This article presents a comprehensive survey of applications of Henri Lefebvre’s theorizations on space in the Turkish context. Through an intensive search and screening of the literature, this article “maps” relevant studies in terms of research topic, geographic and historical scope, and the conceptual framework and concepts used while presenting the general trends and patterns of applications of Lefebvrean space frameworks in the Turkish context. According to the main argument of the study, although there have been intensive applications of various Lefebvrean conceptualizations on space for the case of Turkey, in most of the relevant scholarship, the focus has been on the spatial triad framework or its various components, rather than on a systematic and comprehensive contextualization of the theory.

Öz: Makalenin amacı Lefebvre'nin 'Mekânın Üretimi' kitabının bir okumasını gerçekleştirerek, kitapta öne sürülen mekân kuramının yapısının ve temel kavramsal çerçevesinin yeniden değerlendirilmesidir. Bundan hareketle kuramın temel yapısı olarak her üretim tarzında üretilmekte olan mekânların çözümlemesine yönelik Lefebvre'nin önerdiği dönemselleştirmesi değerlendirilmiştir. Ayrıca makalede toplumsal mekânın anlamlandırılması ve kavramsallaştırılması için kuramda öne sürülen mekânsal üçlü değerlendirilmiştir. Böylece, somut bağlamda gerçekleştirilebilecek herhangi bir araştırma için Lefebvre'nin kuramının kolayca uygulanabilir ve benimsenebilir bir kavramsal çerçevesi çizilmiştir.


A Reading of the Structural and Conceptual Framework of Lefebvre’s Theory of Space

Abstract: By reading Lefebvre's book 'The Production of Space' book, this paper aims to reassess the structure and main conceptual framework of the theory of space presented in the book. Based on this as a main structure of the theory, Lefebvre's periodization of space – aimed at the tracing the spaces being produced during each mode of production – is discussed. In the paper, the spatial triad aiming at understanding and conceptualization of social space is discussed as well. Thus, for any study of space in different contexts, an easily adoptable and applicable structural and conceptual framework of Lefebvre's theory is presented.

Makalede Ermenistan’ın yerel yönetimler ve bölgesel politikaları incelenmektedir. İlk önce Ermenistan’da yerel yönetimlerin gelişimi ve ülkenin idari yapılanmasında yerel yönetimlerin rolü ve yeri incelenmiştir. Makalede Ermenistan’ın yerel yönetimler sistemi, Avrupa Yerel Yönetimler Özerklik Şartı (AYYÖS) bağlamında ve yerel yönetimler mevzuatının bu şartın ilkelerine ve maddelerine uyum sağlayıp sağlamaması açısından incelenmektedir. Bu amaç doğrultusunda Ermenistan anayasası, belediye mevzuatı ve diğer yasalar incelenmiş ve onlarda Ermenistan tarafından onaylanmış olan AYYÖŞ’ün maddeleri ne derecede yansıtıldığı incelenmiştir. Ayrıca, sosyo-ekonomik gelişmişlik açısından önemli bölgelerarası dengesizliklere sahip olan Ermenistan’da, bu dengesizlikleri ortadan kaldırmak ve azaltmak için ülkenin geliştirdiği politikalar ve düzenlemeler ve onların sonuçları incelenmektedir.

The Factors of Electoral Fragmentation of the Territory of Georgia
In the article, the factors causing the electoral fragmentation of the territory of Georgia are analyzed. As main factors of electoral fragmentation of Georgia’s territory, the 'urban-rural' ('center-periphery') cleavage, the ethnic-territorial structure of the country and regional features of administrative resources use, regional socio-economic distinctions in the country etc. are revealed and discussed. As a result, the author has come to the conclusion that the electoral-territorial structure of the territory of Georgia mainly is the result of above-mentioned factors and it has a very complex, eccentric and multi-layer structure.

ФАКТОРЫ ЭЛЕКТОРАЛЬНОЙ ФРАГМЕНТАЦИИ ТЕРРИТОРИИ ГРУЗИИ
В статье проанализированы факторы, обуславливающие электоральную фрагментацию территории Грузии. Раскол 'город-село' ('центр-периферия'). этно-территоиальная структура страны и региональные особенности использования административных ресурсов, региональные социально-экономические различия в стране и т.лрассматриваются как главные факторы электоральной фрагментации территории Грузии. В итоге анализа автор пришел к выводу, что нынешняя электорально-территориальная структура Грузни является в основном результатом выше названных факторов, и имеет очень сложную, полицентричную и многослойную структуру.

The project aims to uncover and map the origins of the population of the settlements of modern Armenia since the 19th century resulting from such major events as the Russo-Turkish War, the Armenian Genocide, resettlements during the Soviet period, repatriation to Soviet Armenia, the Karabakh War, etc.

Additional details on the project can be found at https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/rsq9e

The results of the project can be found at https://public.tableau.com/profile/husikghulyan#!/vizhome/NationinMotion/Sheet1