Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the growing housing crisis in Turkey's southern cities, focusing on Antalya. Taking rental contracts as social relations that reflect broader social dynamics and power structures, it explores the responses of tenants' rights movements to the hyper-commodification of housing.

Paper long abstract:

Since the pandemic, international organizations have increasingly highlighted a 'new phase' in the escalating housing crisis in the Mediterranean region, as evidenced by widespread struggles with mortgages, rents, utilities, and the rising tide of evictions, foreclosures, and homelessness.

This paper focuses on Antalya, a tourism-oriented city in southern Turkey that is emblematic of the hyper-commodification of housing since the early 2000s. Antalya's urban landscape has undergone a drastic transformation due to both economic commodification and socio-political factors, including migration from conflict zones such as Syria, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as recent influxes from earthquake zones in Turkey. The paper explores the narratives of emerging tenants' rights movements in Antalya. These movements, which are driven by the demand for a just housing policy, are navigating within a landscape of highly nationalist sentiments that are colored by anti-immigrant discourses.

Through ethnographic material, the paper evaluates the perspectives of NGOs, migrants, legal experts, real estate agents, local communities, and government agencies, each bringing unique discourses to the housing crisis. A key focus is defining the rental contract as a social relationship and examining how these arrangements reflect and influence broader social dynamics and power structures. In contrast to European cases, Antalya's hyper-commodification is primarily driven by small-scale landlords and investors. This model has complicated the dynamics between landlords and tenants, ranging from violent interactions to compromises. It also has fragmented tenants' mobilization, hindering collective action towards common goals. By examining how different actors redefine the tenancy relationship within a rights discourse, this study aims to identify whether these discourses can coalesce into a new global policy lexicon, potentially promoting a more equitable housing agenda.