Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Art and Vocational Training Courses: A Matrix for Reviving Arts and Handicrafts, Constructing Local Values, and Reworking National Culture

İSMEK information bulletin (İSMEK Haber Bulteni) 16 (2016).

It is, however, discussed in unpublished works by Lepont (2007) and Girard (2010).

The AKP, a conservative Islamic party, has been in power since 2002.

İSMEK, Branş rehberi 2014–2015 [Course guide].

The term “matrix” as used here refers to the manufacture of heritage in its ideological and material dimensions. The idea of a matrix, including the processes of conception, reception, and assimilation, provides a way of seeing how İSMEK deliberately acts as a force for cultural change.

Drawing on Lascoumes and Le Galès (2004) for study of the instruments, and Appadurai (1996) and Callon (2006) for locality.

This study also draws to a lesser extent on field surveys carried out into projects to relaunch handicrafts in Istanbul in 2005 as part of my PhD thesis, and surveys in south-east Anatolia in 2011 with C. Scalbert-Yücel as part of the ANR Transtur research program.

This Islamic party was banned in 1998.

According to Lepont (2007), İSMEK is a mixed ownership company (being 99 % public and 1 % private). It is financed by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB), which contracts out the running of the company to the private sector after a tender process (Alpaydin 2006).

İBB, İçinizdeki yeteneği İSMEK ’le fark edin/Explore the ability inside you with İSMEK, undated: 13.

Idem.

İSMEK statistical data for the year 2013–2014 and for the categories “Handicraft technology” (18.76 %), “Art and design” (5.56 %), “Ceramic and Glass” (0.49 %), “Wood Technology” (0.29 %), and “Jewelry Technology” (0.47 %).

Two of these centers are in the Üsküdar district, and the other in Fatih, both conservative pro-AKP districts.

İSMEK, Branş rehberi/2014–2015 [Course guide].

It is also no doubt needs to be seen within the context of revisions in 2004 to municipal laws on education (Law nos. 5215 and 5393) (on this point see Alpaydın 2006: 12).

I have not found any publications prior to 2006. This was the date of my first field visit, and coincided with the launch of the El sanatları journal.

See Keyder (1999), Bartu (1999, 2001), and Bora (1999).

This was taken up in 2015, with one of the explicit missions of İSMEK, being to “regenerate the arts that are nearly forgotten” (online pdf presentation of İSMEK,, http://​www.​etf.​europa.​eu/​eventsmgmt.​nsf/​(getAttachment)/​D83582342D7E5A03​C1257CBA00472F0C​/​$File/​İSMEK%20​EN.​pdf).

Issue no. 2 of El Sanatları (2006) was thus called Gelenek ve gelecek [“Tradition and future”].

In the 1990s, “according to a 1993 municipal report, 350,000 migrants arrived in the city each year” (Cheviron and Pérouse 2016: 147). Natural growth has outstripped migration inflows for many years (Atlas électronique de la croissance d’Istanbul du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours, 2005).

The actors I met made recurrent reference to tradition, as do publications.

Article published in Zaman newspaper under the title “Geleneksel sanatlara AB desteği” [EU support for traditional handicrafts], 4 June 2005.

Conversation with members of staff, İSMEK, January 2007.

Preface of Kadir Topbaş in Hat San’atı. Tarihçe, Malzeme ve Örnekler [The Art of Calligraphy. History, Materials and Examples] (Berk 2006).

This new category appeared in the fifth issue of the İSMEK information bulletin, but in reference to an event in June 2010.

It is worth noting that a new branch focusing on the contemporary trades of clothing, tailoring, and fashion design also appeared.

İSMEK Haber Bülteni [İSMEK information bulletin] 7 (2011–2012).

These new categories would not appear to be associated with the goal of providing vocational training. cf. Part three.

For example, issue 15 of İSMEK Haber Bülteni [İSMEK information bulletin] (2015) has two articles about Turkish-Islamic arts.

The handicraft center of the Touring Club was founded in 1987, that of the Turkish Cultural Service Foundation in 1989, and that of the Hoca Ahmet Yesevi Foundation in 1996. Fieldwork I conducted in 2005 did not establish any affinities with the AKP. The Touring Club handicraft center was involved in the movement to promote heritage as part of the drive to promote tourism by the center-right municipal authorities in Istanbul in the 1980s. Our field research has shown that the references mobilized by the Turkish Cultural Service Foundation handicraft center are more pre-Ottoman and Republican periods rather than Ottoman. The foundation distanced itself from the AKP discourse about the Ottoman Empire. And, the handicraft centre of Hoca Ahmet Yesevi Foundation was promoting a pan-Turkish ideal, according to our research.

http://​www.​kultur.​gov.​tr/​EN,98709/​traditional-arts-and-crafts.​html (consulted on 28 May 2017).

I observed courses in the central districts of Fatih and Üsküdar. This would need to be systemized to other centers.

İSMEK has 2150 teachers in all four its courses. More than 80 % of them are women (Parlara and Fidan 2014).

The İSMEK website now contains information about programs and course manuals, some of which go over the history.

According to the instructors I met in 2007.

One may read, for example: “The target audience of İSMEK being the most popular adult education institution has a great diversity. Among our trainees are housewives, young girls and boys, the unemployed, workers, illiterate citizens, the disabled, prisoners, the aged and pensioners.” İBB, İçinizdeki yeteneği İSMEK’le fark edin/Explore the ability inside you with İSMEK, undated: 11.

Source: İSMEK. Arts and handicraft courses are followed almost exclusively by women. For a more in-depth study of İSMEK students, teachers, and administrative staff, see Alpaydın (2006). See too Parlara and Fidan (2014) about the teaching staff.

The low level of female employment in Turkey also needs to be borne in mind. In 2008 this stood far below the Organisation for Economic and Co-operative Development (OECD) average, at 29.3 %, rising to 37.3 % in 2012, as a result of policies to assist hiring, and because the recession meant a second revenue was often necessary (OECD, http://​www.​oecdbetterlifein​dex.​org/​fr/​topics/​emploi/​, accessed on 1 November 2016).

According to İSMEK statistics for 2006, 42.97 % were under 25, 54.51 % were single, 44.27 % had completed secondary schooling, 19.64 % had “basic education”, and 18.70 % had “primary school” level (Alpaydın 2006: 64–66).

The administration mainly views these courses as a hobby. Furthermore, they are not offered at “vocational expertise centers”, which provide training for the job market, in fields such as IT, finance, hairdressing, cookery, and health.

I do not know if any of the women have become instructors in turn.

People of various origins—including Turkish, Armenian, Kurdish, and Laz—work in professional workshops. Equally the objects produced are a blend of various cultural influences.

UNESCO, Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Periodic report no. 00815/ Turkey, 2013, p. 28 (www.​unesco.​org/​culture/​ich/​doc/​download.​php?​versionID=​26319, accessed 20 March 2017).

For discussion of BELMEK, see Alpaydın (2006), Yıldız (2012).

Alpaydın notes that there is a division of the sexes. BELTEK, founded in 1999 and focusing on technical training, targets a male public (Alpaydın 2006: 24).

https://​www.​ankara.​bel.​tr/​en/​cultural-services/​belmek, accessed on 16 March 2016.

For analysis of the transformations and rise in adult education under the RP and then the AKP, in tune with OECD and World Bank demands, see Yıldız (2012).

See Girard and Scalbert-Yücel (2015).

UNDP/GAP administration, “Umbrella Program on GAP Sustainable Development”, phase III (2008–2012), “Nine towns, nine designers” project.