ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the historical emergence of the so-called gecekondu suburbs in Istanbul, before exploring certain militant groups' perception of the shanty towns, intuited to be a site of revolutionary potential. It examines the key performative practices of leftist activists and factions in their attempts to communicate with and mobilise gecekondu inhabitants. The chapter analyses more carefully the relationship between factions' gecekondu activities and their ethics of revolution, hypothesising that the crisis conditions of Istanbul in the late 1970s and the exposure to the world views and lives of the shanty town inhabitants facilitated for militants a radical critique of the origins of their own ethics. It also examines activists' sober personal reflections on the political activities of their younger selves, narratives intimately related to their ongoing ethical engagements with Istanbul. The chapter describes and analyses leftist groups' relationship with one key site of political activism, shanty towns in Istanbul.
