A teneke mahalle, mostly consisting of shacks constructed of collected waste materials, is a late Ottoman and early Republican phenomenon that parallels its global counterparts such as the Corralones in Peru or the Indian slums. Although occasionally mentioned in the pioneer studies, the long history of the teneke mahalles has been overlooked until recent times; and in the mainstream discussions on urban poverty, these neighbourhoods have almost wholly been invisible. However, informal settlements came to the agenda of the state and society, right after the massive eviction in 1883 of the refugees of the War of 1877-78 from the free temporary settlements. They created teneke mahalles, and over time, the local poor also adopted their creative solution for cheap and relatively safe housing. Drawing on both archival and oral records, the author establishes the actual presence of the category and traces the development of the idiom in the late 19th-century.
Selected Passages
"Informality is not a marginal phenomenon but characterizes a common form of urban expansion in many cities of the global south. In these cases, informal settlements, constructed mainly on government land, house the majority of city dwellers. The occupiers benefit from the support of government services as they attempt to regularize their tenure on the occupied land. Informality arises from the discrepancy between the modernized formal frame for the production of human beings’ daily existence and the actual realities of the human beings themselves. The requirements of modern existence are very expensive, and it is not possible for everybody to adhere to or display the behavioral characteristics that modernity requires."
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"While the Ottoman bureaucrats, Levantine, and local traders settled in new, regular and modernized neighborhoods, the traditional Ottoman neighborhoods became less attractive for the elites, and the urban fabric in these places gradually became dilapidated in Istanbul. Although the deteriorating neighborhoods were less desirable for the modernizing Ottoman elites, their presence was still justified by a long tradition, and the discrepancy between their conditions and the newly regulated formal frame of urbanization was tolerable to a degree. However, the development of teneke mahalles as neither formal nor traditional, but as informal settlements, was a new phenomenon, and their presence indicated the limits of nineteenth-century Ottoman modernization in terms of formal urbanization and highlighted the capability of ordinary people to fill the gaps of urban formality with an informal way of place-making."
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"The extensive literature in Turkey draws a portrait of gecekondus that is similar to the Barriadas or Gunthewaris from many aspects: the development of gecekondus, the physically improving, informal settlements built by the ex-agriculturalist rural migrants on the less central areas of the cities have been one of the significant patterns of urbanization since the 1950s. However, there are almost no studies about the development and spread of teneke mahalles, which was the primary form of informal settlements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article focuses on the early formation of teneke mahalles in the order to fill the gap in the literature drawing on the archival or oral records."
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"Nişantaşı-Teşvikiye was among the rising new settlements of modernizing Ottoman Istanbul. An area of 174 dönüm (approximately forty-three acres) in the Nişantaşı location was separated from Balmumcu Farm to establish a new neighborhood for the ruling elites. While the formal establishment dated 1859,100 it became densely populated by the elites during the reign of Abdulhamid II (1876-1908) The most privileged portion of the local elites inhabited the neighborhood during the Republican era, and its image as a highly prestigious locality has persisted up to now. Surprisingly, the distance between Nişantaşı and the Teneke Mahallesi was no more than 400 meters."
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"Two Armenians,120 named Oseb (Hovsep’)121 and Kiġorḳ (Gevork-Kevork),122 applied to the government with a petition (ᶜarż-ı ḫāl [arzuhal])123 in 1889, demanding the demolition of shacks on their territory in Göztepe Kireç ocaġı in Nerdubān (Merdiven). Göztepe, which located by the Marmara coast on the Asian side of Istanbul, was one of the newly developing residential zones with a high concentration of mansions or kiosks housing the ruling elites and wealthy Europeans. According to the documents dated 1889, the legal owner of Nerdubān village was the Sulṭān126 Cāmiᶜi Vaḳfi. Although further research is needed for clarification, Oseb (Hovsep’) and Kiġorḳ (Gevork-Kevork) probably had bought the usufruct of the territory applying to long-term leasing procedures of Ottoman “waqf” lands (such as icāreteyn or muḳāṭaᶜa) and saw the shack invasion as the violation of their legal rights."
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"The cases mentioned above are crucial to understanding the sociospatial phenomenon of teneke mahalles initially built by refugees as small shack clusters. Kumkapı Teneke Mahallesi was located on the empty lot between the railway and decayed ramparts, which constituted a sociospatial gap in one of the ancient districts of historical peninsula. Although the settlements in Nişantaşı and Göztepe were quite far from the historical center, they positioned themselves around the newly developing centers with a high concentration of the rising elites. Therefore, like inhabitants of the Corralones in Peru, the Ciudade perdidas in Mexico City, and the slums in India, the founders of teneke mahalles considered the spatial proximity to the present central locations, where the job opportunities were relatively higher than in the more peripheral ones."
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"Although the idiom teneke mahallesi was first documented in Istanbul, it did not take long for people in some of the other Ottoman (and later Republican cities) to refer to shack clusters constructed out of waste as such. For example, there was a settlement called teneke mahalle in Kavala Town of Salonica province in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Teneke mahalle also became a popular term for newly developing informal settlements in Altındağ, Ankara, Tepecik, İzmir, and Canik, Samsun in the first half of the twentieth century."
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"The inhabitants of surrounding settlements often preferred a one-sided representation of teneke mahalle dwellers as “Gypsies” instead of a diverse agglomeration of the most disadvantaged refugees, including Muslim “Gypsies” and impoverished locals. Thus, the term teneke mahalle frequently became synonymous with the “Gypsy” quarter. However, although “Gypsies,” whom the surrounding population intended to denominate as Çingene or Ḳıbṭī, have been present among the founder refugees or the inhabitants of teneke mahalles, the opportunity of accessible and affordable housing for the poorest
citizens provided by teneke mahalles has never been confined to “Gypsies.”
-
"While the Ottoman bureaucrats, Levantine, and local traders settled in new, regular and modernized neighborhoods, the traditional Ottoman neighborhoods became less attractive for the elites, and the urban fabric in these places gradually became dilapidated in Istanbul. Although the deteriorating neighborhoods were less desirable for the modernizing Ottoman elites, their presence was still justified by a long tradition, and the discrepancy between their conditions and the newly regulated formal frame of urbanization was tolerable to a degree. However, the development of teneke mahalles as neither formal nor traditional, but as informal settlements, was a new phenomenon, and their presence indicated the limits of nineteenth-century Ottoman modernization in terms of formal urbanization and highlighted the capability of ordinary people to fill the gaps of urban formality with an informal way of place-making."
-
"The extensive literature in Turkey draws a portrait of gecekondus that is similar to the Barriadas or Gunthewaris from many aspects: the development of gecekondus, the physically improving, informal settlements built by the ex-agriculturalist rural migrants on the less central areas of the cities have been one of the significant patterns of urbanization since the 1950s. However, there are almost no studies about the development and spread of teneke mahalles, which was the primary form of informal settlements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article focuses on the early formation of teneke mahalles in the order to fill the gap in the literature drawing on the archival or oral records."
-
"Nişantaşı-Teşvikiye was among the rising new settlements of modernizing Ottoman Istanbul. An area of 174 dönüm (approximately forty-three acres) in the Nişantaşı location was separated from Balmumcu Farm to establish a new neighborhood for the ruling elites. While the formal establishment dated 1859,100 it became densely populated by the elites during the reign of Abdulhamid II (1876-1908) The most privileged portion of the local elites inhabited the neighborhood during the Republican era, and its image as a highly prestigious locality has persisted up to now. Surprisingly, the distance between Nişantaşı and the Teneke Mahallesi was no more than 400 meters."
-
"Two Armenians,120 named Oseb (Hovsep’)121 and Kiġorḳ (Gevork-Kevork),122 applied to the government with a petition (ᶜarż-ı ḫāl [arzuhal])123 in 1889, demanding the demolition of shacks on their territory in Göztepe Kireç ocaġı in Nerdubān (Merdiven). Göztepe, which located by the Marmara coast on the Asian side of Istanbul, was one of the newly developing residential zones with a high concentration of mansions or kiosks housing the ruling elites and wealthy Europeans. According to the documents dated 1889, the legal owner of Nerdubān village was the Sulṭān126 Cāmiᶜi Vaḳfi. Although further research is needed for clarification, Oseb (Hovsep’) and Kiġorḳ (Gevork-Kevork) probably had bought the usufruct of the territory applying to long-term leasing procedures of Ottoman “waqf” lands (such as icāreteyn or muḳāṭaᶜa) and saw the shack invasion as the violation of their legal rights."
-
"The cases mentioned above are crucial to understanding the sociospatial phenomenon of teneke mahalles initially built by refugees as small shack clusters. Kumkapı Teneke Mahallesi was located on the empty lot between the railway and decayed ramparts, which constituted a sociospatial gap in one of the ancient districts of historical peninsula. Although the settlements in Nişantaşı and Göztepe were quite far from the historical center, they positioned themselves around the newly developing centers with a high concentration of the rising elites. Therefore, like inhabitants of the Corralones in Peru, the Ciudade perdidas in Mexico City, and the slums in India, the founders of teneke mahalles considered the spatial proximity to the present central locations, where the job opportunities were relatively higher than in the more peripheral ones."
-
"Although the idiom teneke mahallesi was first documented in Istanbul, it did not take long for people in some of the other Ottoman (and later Republican cities) to refer to shack clusters constructed out of waste as such. For example, there was a settlement called teneke mahalle in Kavala Town of Salonica province in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Teneke mahalle also became a popular term for newly developing informal settlements in Altındağ, Ankara, Tepecik, İzmir, and Canik, Samsun in the first half of the twentieth century."
-
"The inhabitants of surrounding settlements often preferred a one-sided representation of teneke mahalle dwellers as “Gypsies” instead of a diverse agglomeration of the most disadvantaged refugees, including Muslim “Gypsies” and impoverished locals. Thus, the term teneke mahalle frequently became synonymous with the “Gypsy” quarter. However, although “Gypsies,” whom the surrounding population intended to denominate as Çingene or Ḳıbṭī, have been present among the founder refugees or the inhabitants of teneke mahalles, the opportunity of accessible and affordable housing for the poorest
citizens provided by teneke mahalles has never been confined to “Gypsies.”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0096144220948808
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