On 1 September, Fatma Aliosman has started her PhD research entitled 'Heteroscapes of Dissensus'.
This dissertation offers a view on the relationship between spatial order and political power. Focusing in particular on the spatial aspect of political and ideological disagreements, the study investigates the consequences of oppositional spatial tactics of/against power in relation to urban space. The proposal argues that in cases of political dispute (or dissensus), public places are used as their most effective tool. Subsequently, urban spaces operate as a political apparatus, where oppositional acts take place.
The research aims to identify and frame such spaces, observing their supposed three major ways of intervention and accordingly expose how the ‘space of dispute’: (1) acts as an emancipator tool through which multitudes that have been silenced or not been able to express themselves oppose authority and its implementations; (2) introduces irregularity through transgressive spatial operations that activate new conditions and heterogeneous applications to the urban field; (3) accommodates heterotopias through the exclusion and un-recognition of the ‘messy, ill constructed and jumbled’ landscape of ‘other places’. In order to clarify the ways oppositional power converts ‘regular’ space into its own political agent, this study will focus on the ‘re-appropriation of space’ under the influence and invasion of foreign and conflicting agents.
