Talk:
\n\u201cPublic Lands and Dimensions of Citizenship: A Comparative Analysis of Mexico and Turkey\u201d<\/p>\n
by
\n\u00d6zge Y\u00fcksekkaya Political Science
\nKo\u00e7 University, Turkey & University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
\no.yuksekkaya@uva.nl<\/p>\n
Date and Room Info
\nWednesday, March 4, 2026, 12:30 p.m.
\nA-130<\/p>\n
Abstract
\nPublic lands have long been a vital resource for meeting one of the most basic needs of the urban poor: shelter, a precondition for accessing other social rights and a core component of social citizenship. In many low\u2011 and middle\u2011income countries, informal settlements constructed on public lands, such as gecekondus, colonias populares, and favelas, fulfilled a welfare function, albeit informally. They have been tolerated and even used as a de facto social policy tool by governments, helping prevent homelessness and secure political support. Mexico and Turkey were no exceptions to this rule: in Mexico City and Istanbul, the urban poor have historically relied on public lands for housing. Early work on neoliberalism expected the privatization and formalization of land to retrench material access to housing on public lands, accompanied by spatial exclusion of the urban poor from the city center, and by discourses that legitimized these adverse effects by promoting self-sufficiency and active participation in the market. Yet, public land regimes in both countries have remained surprisingly resilient, raising questions about the impacts of these policies.<\/p>\n
My broader research focuses precisely on these questions and examines how neoliberal public land policies shape social citizenship along three dimensions: material, spatial, and discursive. It demonstrates the heterogeneous impacts of neoliberal public land policies in the material expansion of home ownership for the urban poor, their continued spatial access to the city center, and discourses promoting the state\u2019s responsibility to ensure citizens\u2019 welfare, with variation across Mexico and Turkey. In this talk, I focus on the material dimension by comparatively analyzing Mexico City and Istanbul using spatial and qualitative data. I show that, in addition to expectations of retrenchment, home ownership on public lands has expanded for low\u2011income citizens, but in highly conditional and selective ways\u2014contingent on the urban poor\u2019s political support or threat of protest and shaped by continuing informality in policy implementation. As a result, social citizenship remains (in)formally expanded yet substantively volatile for the urban poor.<\/p>\n
Bio
\n\u00d6zge Y\u00fcksekkaya is a PhD researcher in the joint doctorate program in Political Science at Ko\u00e7 University and the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on social and public policy, comparative politics, political economy, citizenship studies, and urban studies. She is interested in mixed-methods research and combines qualitative approaches with novel spatial techniques. Her current work examines social citizenship and welfare through citizens\u2019 access to public lands and housing in Mexico and Turkey. She has published on the politics of (re)centralization and central-local government relations in urban policy. Her research has been supported by major grants and fellowships from TUBITAK and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research Foundation (IJURR).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Talk: \u201cPublic Lands and Dimensions of Citizenship: A Comparative Analysis of Mexico and Turkey\u201d by \u00d6zge Y\u00fcksekkaya Political Science Ko\u00e7 University, Turkey & University of Amsterdam, Netherlands o.yuksekkaya@uva.nl Date and Room Info Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 12:30 p.m. A-130 Abstract Public lands have long been a vital resource for meeting [\u2026] <\/p>\n