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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how an in-the-making infrastructural megaproject, namely “Canal Istanbul and the New City,” produces everyday geopolitics of New Turkey by activating speculative futures and geopolitical imaginaries among local residents, activists, and real estate actors.

Paper long abstract

This paper focuses on an in-the-making infrastructural urban megaproject in Istanbul, namely the Canal Istanbul and New City project. This project foresees a new mega waterway in Istanbul for international maritime trade, along with an extensive urban development in the hinterlands of the Canal. The paper examines how this in-the-making project produces the everyday geopolitics of New Turkey—a vision advanced by the ruling party over the past decade and framed through neo-Ottomanist references to Istanbul as the heartland of a presumed empire. I investigate how everyday experiences of waiting for this infrastructural megaproject open up a dynamic terrain in which diverse actors (local residents, real estate agents, activists) navigate the speculative present and actively construct geopolitical imaginaries and futures. The study brings insights from the anthropology of future into dialogue with the literature on everyday geopolitics in order to illuminate the processes through which geopolitics is made from below. Methodologically, I propose an ethnographic design including participant observation, interviews, and document analysis. Fieldwork will begin in one of the areas most frequently cited in media coverage as being highly affected by the project. The initial focus on residents of this location will be extended to other nearby villages and neighborhoods as the research progresses, as well as to other relevant actors across the wider region and Istanbul, including activists, real estate agents at multiple scales, and, where possible, officials and bureaucrats.