Sarah El-Kazaz: Heritage Preservation as Pro-Poor Practice in Istanbul

City Street
February 22, 2018
All Day
Heirloom Cafe in OSU Wexner Center & 18th Ave Library, Room 070

Sarah El-Kazaz is Assistant Professor of Politics at Oberlin College. Her current book project mobilizes a multisited ethnography in Cairo and Istanbul to examine the political economy of urban transformation in Middle Eastern cities. She is the author of "Building 'Community' and Markets in Contemporary Cairo" forthcoming with Comparative Studies in Society and History and co-guest editor of the special section, “The Un-Exceptional Middle Eastern City” in City and Society. El-Kazaz received a BA from the American University in Cairo, an MA from New York University and her PhD from Princeton University.
Lunch Discussion: Thursday, February 22, 2018, 12pm - 1:30pm 
Lunch Location: Heirloom Cafe in OSU Wexner Center, 1871 N High St, Columbus, OH
Lecture: Thursday, February 22, 2018, 2pm - 4pm 
Lecture Location: 18th Ave Library, Room 070, 175 W 18th Ave, Columbus, OH

Overview and key points:
Sarah El-Kazaz will speak about her work over a lunch discussion (lunch will be provided) and a lecture.

Heritage preservation is conventionally understood as motivated by identity-based projects of collective memory or tourism. In this paper El-Kazaz argues that heritage preservation is increasingly being adopted as a pro-poor practice that works to re-regulate real estate markets and safeguard affordable housing in neoliberalizing cities. To make this argument, she analyzes a case study of a heritage preservation project implemented in Istanbul in the wake of the Habitat II conference. The paper then unpacks the contradictions and limitations inherent to adopting heritage preservation as a pro-poor practice and the ways in which that development reorders power dynamics within neighborhoods undergoing preservation as market re-regulation.