CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2012
| Author | Akyar, Aylin |
|---|---|
| Title | Sociability in Starbucks Coffee Houses of Istanbul: The Contemporary Public Space and its Uses |
| Summary | Sociability in Starbucks Coffee Houses of Istanbul: The Contemporary Public Space and Its Uses This thesis presents an analytical overview of the economic, social and cultural effects of globalization on Istanbul’s urban social scene, including women’s mobility in the public accelerated with the emergence of new, ‘global’, ‘modern’ public spaces, from the perspective of the Starbucks cafe public in a variety of central districts in Istanbul. Primarily, the thesis builds a historical analysis of the Ottoman coffee houses and their significant place in the Ottoman Istanbul’s public life; and it studies the coffee house as a highly popular public space, from the Habermasian and Sennettian perspectives regarding its functions and desirable functions in the society. Habermas’ public sphere model of the eighteenth century, essentially its exclusion of women, and the quintessentially male character of the urban flaneur of the nineteenth century are discussed and linked to the contemporary public condition in Istanbul. The research is concerned with finding how in the contemporary Istanbul, the Starbucks cafe patrons use the place, in the ways in which Certeau (1984) argues, as producing their own meanings. The uses of the cafe by the informants, especially as a refuge from the huddle outside, as a comfortable & safe space, as a peaceful space or as a public space necessarily different from the other public spaces; reveal the social, economic and cultural segmentations and polarizations in Istanbul: disparities between the educational, cultural, financial levels of the residents and disparate conditions of living. The thesis ultimately argues that Starbucks cafes in Istanbul today are not merely consumed but used in diverse ways, varying from bonding with strangers in the Sennettian (1986) sense to identifying with the cafe crowd in the sense of finding cultural/intellectual/socio – economic similarities with others in the cafe, to urban flanerie of both male and female patrons – socialising alone and to making it a refuge from the huddle of the city life. |
| Supervisor | Hadley Z. Renkin |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2012/akyar_aylin.pdf |
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