- YILLIK: Annual of Istanbul Studies
- Volume:3
- Arap Bacı’nın Ara Muhaveresi: Under the Shadow of the Ottoman Empire and Its Study
Arap Bacı’nın Ara Muhaveresi: Under the Shadow of the Ottoman Empire and Its Study
Authors : Zavier WINGHAM
Pages : 177-183
Doi:10.53979/yillik.2021.11
View : 54 | Download : 10
Publication Date : 2021-12-30
Article Type : Other Papers
Abstract :This essay is, in part, an attempt to consider how these real and imagined Ottoman geographies are underpinned by the histories and afterlives of exploitation, exploration, and conquest. I am less concerned with retrieving these histories to identify Ottoman-era diversity or to place the African diaspora within a mosaic of Ottoman Istanbul. Rather, I am interested in how reading Arap Bacı and her histories as intimately connected to the production of space might help reframe the study of Istanbul—as well as the Ottoman Empire—and its multilayered relationship to slavery and the African diaspora. Here, the production of space is understood to be co-constituted by both real and imagined geographies. That Arap Bacı cannot be located in Istanbul insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(and its study);—despite the city insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(as urban space/place, as seat of imperial power); being central to her domination insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(the slave market, the harem, the elite house);—but can be conjured within the theatrical shadows of an imagined Istanbul, perhaps, evinces the need to further interrogate the co-constitution of space and how geographies and knowledge production are interconnected.Keywords : MECLİS, Ottoman Geography, Ottoman Istanbul, Diaspora, African
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