Exclusions of Conviviality: Negotiation of Space, Ideology, Class, Gender and Lifestyle Differences

Abstract

In this chapter, I explore the sharing of space, spatial negotiations, inclusions and exclusions that are drawn by space, class, ideology, gender, tastes and differences in lifestyles. I begin by exploring the islanders’ memories, the social use of space and the social division of labour (Lefèbvre, The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Vol. 142. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), and the ways in which class difference is experienced on/in people’s bodies. Inspired by Öz and Eder (“Problem Spaces” and Struggles Over the Right to the City: Challenges of Living Differentially in a Gentrifying Istanbul Neighborhood. International Journal of Urban & Regional Research 42 (6): 1030–1047. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12656, 2018), I question whose norms, ideologies, values and hegemonic claims mark spatial exclusions and inclusions. Building on Doreen Massey’s (For Space. London: SAGE. Non-fiction, 2005) “throwntogetherness,” I dig into the ways in which the islanders use public and open spaces, and contest and negotiate spatial boundaries of closed places.

Dönüş: Returning to the Island

Every time I go back to Burgaz, I think of Sait Faik’s dönüş (return) story. When Sait Faik got on the boat, he felt like returning to his home, the island. When I take the boat from Bostancı, a warm feeling, tingling in my stomach starts with the “brum, patapatapata” sound of the boat engine and peaks with the sound of the boat siren. I usually see a few similar faces from Burgaz on the boat. Then the seagulls start following the boat. Some people throw simit (a sort of sesame bagel) that they have just bought at the harbour to the seagulls. Leaving Istanbul and returning to Burgaz, makes me feel as if I am going to meet a childhood friend, or visiting an old school or playground. At the back of the boat, the propeller hits the sea and makes the waves, that go wider and wider, distancing the boat from Istanbul. The smell of salt burns my nostrils. The air gets fresher and fresher, and saltier. I leave the seagulls floating on the sea. The boat takes us first to Kınalıada (another Princes’ Islands), where some people get off. Then the boat approaches Burgaz. My stomach gets squeezed when I see the bays, trees and rocks of Burgaz, the mosque, the church, the big and finally the small harbour.

While studies on coexistence and toleration describe cohesion and conflict based on ethnic and religious differences (see Chap. 1), in this chapter, I explain cohesion and fragmentation based on negotiations of space, class, gender, ideology and different lifestyles, in the ways in which ethnicity and religion intersect with these. I do so, by first taking you for an island tour.

Going for a Walk on Burgaz

You see a line of restaurants (Fig. 4.1) on your right as soon as you jump from the Mavi Marmara boat, few big buckets with lüfer (bluefish) swimming in them, sailing and fishing boats, and seagulls floating on the shore. Lots and lots of cats sit, walk and play at the harbour, in between the restaurants. There were not so many cats on the island, neither in Istanbul, in 2009, when I did my long-term fieldwork, but now their numbers have increased incredibly. The restaurants owners yell to invite and attract customers, especially those who visit the island from Istanbul, the non-islanders.

Fig. 4.1

Burgaz seaside, in between the two harbours (photo taken by the author)

If you do not take the street of the restaurants, but keep going straight into the island, then towards the left, it gets quieter and quieter. Daytrippers do not know much about this part of the island. There is Cemevi (Alevi gathering house) with its tea garden, which is very much liked by the islanders. If you keep going, the streets get narrower, and the houses more asymmetrical. You will see damp, colourful clothes hanging on ropes in between two trees and it looks like a small village (see Fig. 4.6), with chickens and roosters walking hastily, little chicks running and a donkey roaring. You can see seagulls, cats and crows eating together cat food left by the islanders.

If you walk along the line of the restaurants and follow the coast, the noise and the rush of the daytrippers continue, especially when the weather is good. A few years ago, when you passed the patisserie, the grocery shops, a playground, you would start smelling the horse poo. The smell would get very intense when you passed by the horse cart parking slot. However, the horse carts, and the smell of the horse poo, which used to be one of the symbols of the islands, were decided to be taken away by the Istanbul municipality, due to horse plague that spread among the horses. We also heard the rumour that the horses on the islands, especially in Büyükada were treated badly and this had an effect on this decision. The horse cart riders in Burgaz protested that they took very good care of the horses. This created further rumours on the island that these horses were left to die, after the removal of the horse carts. The horse cart riders were compensated by a big lump sum for the loss of their job and means of earning. Instead, electric cars, were implemented to provide transportation within the island. There are mixed reactions to these electric vehicles. For the elderly and those who have difficulty with mobility, these were very convenient as they were cheap and very functional. For some others, that is having a negative impact as it fastens the pace of the island, lessens the opportunity for the islanders to walk on the paths of the island.

Behind the street of restaurants, there is the çarşı (shopping area): four small grocery shops, two patisseries, one post office, two grocers, water and gas sellers, some small snack and sandwich places and one pharmacy. When you go straight from the harbour towards the centre, just around the newspaper kiosk, there are stands of cheap jewellery, clothes, second-hand books and souvenir-type objects displayed and sold mainly during summer. The clients are usually the non-islander tourists, who visit the island on day trips. However, summer inhabitants also drop by to have a look. The centre is a place where people stroll, look at stalls and bump into each other near restaurants and cafes. Thus, there are always groups of people standing and chatting, and time is extended on the island, because you will always see someone you know, stop to talk, join people’s tables or join people for a stroll. There are also some benches at the edges of the centre so that people can sit, drink beer or eat sunflower seeds.

The centre is inhabited by all different ethnic, class and religious groups. The neighbourhood immediately behind the harbour and the centre itself, close to the restaurants and the two social clubs, are areas inhabited by Jews, Sunni Muslims, Germans and Armenians, most of whom are summer inhabitants. The centre, the left side from the harbour, all the way to the peak are prestigious neighbourhoods. Among the summer inhabitants some prefer to be closer to the centre and the social clubs, while some prefer to live higher up, to enjoy the serenity, away from the crowd, watching the panorama of the other two Princes’ Islands, Heybeli and Kaşıkadası. Most of the old wooden mansions (see Figs. 4.2 and 4.3) are owned by these summer residents. These mansions were designed and built by Armenian and Rum architects, mostly at the end of the nineteenth century (Tuğlacı 1992). They are spread in between the centre and the peak of the island. When you keep walking towards the right of the harbour, the roads will go higher up and will take you to Ay Nikola, whose name is changed to Turgut Reis (In Turkish), where the inhabitants are mainly Zaza and Kurdish Alevis and Sunni Muslims. The houses in Ay Nikola are concrete constructions, most of them built by the permanent inhabitants themselves. While the population lessens in the neighbourhoods close to the centre in winter when most of the summer inhabitants move back to Istanbul, the population in Ay Nikola remains almost the same.

Fig. 4.2

A mansion (photo taken by the author)

Fig. 4.3

Another mansion (photo taken by the author)

If you go further up towards the peak of the island, the neighbourhood is composed of mixed summer islanders such as Sunnis, Armenians and Suryanis. When you go all the way up, you pass by the Austrian chapel, and then you reach Hristos, whose Rum name is changed to Bayraktepe, which mean the hill of the flag. You see a Turkish flag up there. There is the Metamorphosis church and the Rum Orthodox cemetery there. Every time I climb up, I feel the leg muscles getting tenser and tenser and when I wake up the next day, the soreness in my leg muscles remind me that I have been to Hristos. Despite the Turkification of the names in the case of Ay Nikola and Hristos, most of the islanders, use the older versions of the names (see Saglam 2022). When you walk to the back of the island, there is Kalpazankaya. Its name comes from the big rock at the shore, where according to a legend, people use to forge fake money. Today, there is a restaurant nearby, where one can watch a beautiful sunset (Fig. 4.4) and look over the two inhabitant islands, Yassıada and Issıada.

Fig. 4.4

Sunset from Kalpazankaya (photo taken by the author)

One of my female Rum informants said when we were having lemonade in one of the social clubs said: “Space is important. Where you live on the island hints your status. If you lived in a poorer neighbourhood and move to a richer one, the islanders will remind you “You used to live in Ay Nikola? Now you live higher up near the Catholic church.” Bearing in mind my informant’s quote “space is important,” in this chapter, I explore the sharing of space, spatial negotiations, inclusions and exclusions that are drawn by space, class, ideology, gender, tastes and differences in lifestyles. I begin by exploring the islanders’ memories, the social use of space and the social division of labour (Lefèbvre 1991), and the ways in which class difference is experienced on/in people’s bodies. Lefèbvre suggests that every society produces its own space through appropriating and modifying it (Lefèbvre 1991, 31, 35). He uses the analysis of social space “as a tool for the analysis of society” (Lefèbvre 1991, 34) and states that as “space embodies social relationships” one can explore space to analyse the social relations that are embedded in it (Lefèbvre 1991, 27). Inspired by Öz and Eder (2018), I question whose norms, ideologies, values and hegemonic claims mark spatial exclusions and inclusions, and how these are negotiated. I, then, explore how Burgaz islanders differentiate themselves from non-Burgazians and articulate a shared Burgaz identity, performed through their collective Burgaz habitus. Building on Doreen Massey’s (2005) “throwntogetherness,” I dig into the ways in which the islanders use public and open spaces, and contest and negotiate spatial boundaries of closed places.

Who Owns the Sea, the Sun and the Summer?

In this section, I explore the islanders’ memories to document changes in demography, in the division of labour and social life on the island. According to Orhan and the summer inhabitants, whose parents lived on Burgaz during the early years of the Republic, in the 1920s and 1930s, most of the island population used to be Rums. The permanent inhabitants of Burgaz, such as restaurant and coffee shop owners, storekeepers, fishermen, bakers and grocers were all Rums. The government officials and civil servants, who were very few in number, were Sunni Muslims and were referred to as “Turks.” The summer inhabitants, were mostly Rums, Ashkenazi Jews, Germans and Austrian nuns. Jewish Burgazlı (of/from Burgaz) were upper-class elites compared to the Jewish middle-lower/working-class esnaf (small business owner) of Heybeliada (another Princes’ Islands). Burgazlılar (plural of Burgazlı) were also productive and self-efficient in the sense that they did fishing, gardening, beekeeping and growing flowers, vegetables and fruit. The Austrian nuns produced dairy products. One of my Rum informants, Niko, said that whatever was produced on the island was consumed on Burgaz and the excess of the flowers were sent to Istanbul to be sold. Some of these producers were also highly educated, such as Taso, the Rum gardener, who was a graduate of the private German high school, which is one of the best private schools in Turkey. The permanent inhabitants produced, and the summer inhabitants enjoyed whatever the permanent islanders could offer them. There were small business owners like bakkal (grocer), and water seller. There were five gazinos (taverns), where the islanders ate, drank, danced and had fun.

The Rum permanent inhabitants of Burgaz and the elite summer inhabitants socialised regardless of class differences, which I refer to as “classless sociable sociality.” For instance, in Bercuhi Berberyan’s (2010, 176) memoire book on Burgaz, she wrote: “There was, in fact, no class difference. Rich, poor, medical doctor, artist, the anchor man … you name it … like going to fish together, drinking at the same tavern, play together, singing together on the street … can share the same pleasure/joy in its deepest sincerity (my own translation).” She recalls that the son of the shoemaker (Alevi from Erzincan), the Jewish, Rum and Muslim summer inhabitants played together, while the Rum fisherman (lower socio-economic background) and wealthy Jewish, Muslim summer inhabitants ate and drank together in the harbour or in their homes. The Rums took the lead in the making of the island culture, and the islanders from different faiths and classes kept it as a cultural heritage. There were only Rum Orthodox churches as places of worship (the mosque was built in 1953). The Sunni Muslims, who were in charge of the security and who held public positions like the police and the postman, also enjoyed this cultural heritage and saw themselves as the protector of these, such as protecting the island, from the invaders coming from Istanbul, during the 6–7 September 1955 pogrom. This cultural heritage is embodied, performed, is still alive and incorporated in different forms in people’s everyday life (see Alivizatou 2012; Saglam 2022). Whoever migrated to the island, embodied the island life and its cultural heritage.

While Bourdieu’s (1990) habitus is class bound and rather homogenous, in the sense that a particular class internalises the rules of the game, the social order and then reproduces it, the habitus of Burgaz islanders is heterogeneous. It is heterogeneous in the sense that the summer inhabitants from different ethno-religious backgrounds bring in their diverse habitus to Burgaz life, while at the same time they embody and reproduce Burgaz culture, such as the collective dancing, fishing and drinking that will be told in Orhan’s narrative in Chap. 5. Hence, the summer islanders have a complex set of habitus, influenced by their upbringing in Istanbul, their family, school and social life in Istanbul as well as the island life. This heterogeneous habitus values “exclusive diversity” (Örs 2018) of permanent Burgaz islanders and of those urban Istanbulite summer inhabitants. In the 1950s, Sephardic Jews from Heybeliada and different parts of Istanbul started to move to Burgaz as summer inhabitants. They signed up to the only social club on the island, the Blue Social Club. Even though they were not as upper class as the Ashkenazi Jews as Burgaz, they were from Istanbul and they adapted rather easily to the island. Being a member of the social club, where the members were from diverse ethno-religious background helped in their integration to Burgaz life. As their numbers kept increasing, they also got the permission to have a synagogue built and running in the summer months of 1968.

However, for the Alevis who migrated from Erzincan, Eastern Anatolia to do menial jobs in Burgaz, in the 1940s and onwards, their adaptation to the island life and its exclusive diversity, was more difficult due to rural-urban, education and class differences between themselves and the islanders. The differences in reflecting on the 1940s and 1950s in Burgaz concurred with Passerini’s (1987, 1992) statement that masses of people do not remember the same way, the same things. Passerini (1979, 1987) has a neo-Marxist, Lukacsian and Gramscian emphasis, while investigating memories of fascism in Italy through the experiences of Turin’s working class. Passerini (1987, 1992) shows the ways in which the memories and reflections of the past of the oppressed class differ from those of the dominant class. While the years prior to the 1950s (before the 1955 pogrom) are remembered mainly as joyful and harmonious times for the non-Muslims and the Sunni Muslim summer inhabitants, like Orhan; these were class-based memories and it was not the case for the male Alevi workers, who came to Burgaz to do menial jobs. Those, who migrated from Erzincan, referred to themselves and were also referred by the island inhabitants as Alevis or Erzincanlı (from Erzincan). Depending on the context, if they would like to emphasise their Alevi identities, they refer to themselves as Alevis, and if they would like to highlight the locality where they come from, then they talk about themselves as Erzincanlı. For the Alevis/Erzincanlı, the 1940s and 1950s were years of hardship, adaptation and suffering. After the 1938 uprisingin Dersim (see Chap. 2), the devastating 1939 earthquake and the following economic scarcity, many people in the region started migrating to big cities. First, a couple of Alevis/Erzincanlı families, then, more male migrants came from Erzincan to Burgaz in the 1940s. They worked during the summer season and took back what they earned to their families in Erzincan. The Alevis/Erzincanlı men did menial jobs, such as helping the Rum fishermen reel in nets, when they came back from fishing. They worked as hamal, carrying the furniture of the summer inhabitants, when they moved to the island in the summers, and when they moved back to Istanbul for the winter. The Alevi men also built and restored houses, and worked as waiters and helpers in grocery shops, restaurants and cafes. The building sector in Burgaz had been increasing; there was also a sewage project in Burgaz (see Chap. 8) and new job opportunities came up. They worked as doorkeepers and gardeners in Rum houses (especially in the Ay Nikola area, which is higher up, away from the town centre), where they were given rooms or flats in which to stay. The zangoç (verger) of the Rum Orthodox churches in Burgaz explained to me the story of how Ay Nikola became an Alevi neighbourhood. He said: “Alevis came to work temporarily in summer. Most of them worked in Garipi monastery, in Ay Nikola, painting walls, and fixing things for the church. The priest, who was in charge of the church at that time, let the Alevis settle in the Ay Nikola area, near the Garipi church. Hence, they built small houses and made them bigger when they brought their family to the island.” Thus, Ay Nikola started to become an Alevi neighbourhood.

My male Alevis/Erzincanlı informants always began their migration story with the difficulties they faced, when they started working. The tensions that arose between the Rums and the Alevis were triggered by class differences as well as lifestyle differences. The Istanbulite summer inhabitants and permanent Burgazlı, did not first appreciate the presence of an Anatolian culture on the island. What people wore in Istanbul and Burgaz, and in Erzincan, and how people talked in these two different regions were markers of difference. The summer people in Burgaz wore bathing suits and modern European clothes such as shorts and t-shirts. When women went out in the afternoon, they wore perfume and elegant evening dresses. The non-Muslim women used to go to the harbour in the evening with their children, dressed-up and with full of perfume, to welcome their husbands, who came from their work in Istanbul. The islanders, especially the Sunni Muslims and Alevis/Erzincanlı recall that the air smelled perfume as the non-Muslim women walked down the harbour. The Alevis/Erzincanlı grew up in villages in Erzincan. They wore modest and comfortable clothes to work in the fields and did not have elegant or fashionable outfit. There were also differences in accents. Alevis from Erzincan spoke Zazaki and a version of Turkish that has a harder accent, in which letters like “k” and “g” are emphasised and syllables are rolled in their throat. In Istanbul, these letters are softer and the syllables are rolled in the mouth. In Burgaz, people sprinkle their speech with many Rum and Ladino words, as well.

Nuri (one of the previous heads of the cemevi/Alevi gathering house) commented that in the times of his father’s generation, there was tension between Rum employees and Alevi/Erzincanlı workers. The Rums, who worked in the building sector, constructing walls and painting, employed Alevis/Erzincanlıs as their assistants. His father’s generation wanted to have more experience in the building sector. The Rums gave menial jobs to Alevis, such as carrying the cement, while they (Rums) performed the main duties of making the walls. Some of these Alevi male workers complained that when they wanted to learn to paint the walls, the Rums did not let them. The Alevi men with whom I spoke, interpreted this as “the Rums did not want us to learn more and be better, because we might take their jobs.” Nuri and Mustafa said that their fathers were among the first Alevis to come to work in Burgaz and were looked down upon because they did menial jobs. For instance, Mustafa, whose father was a shoemaker, said: “The Rums used to call us ‘kıro.’ When we passed near them, they said ‘To kıro einai’ [He is kıro], and we started fighting with each other.” Although the sentence was in Rumca, the word kıro comes from Kurdish and is used in Turkish as a derogatory term for someone uneducated and ill-mannered. These two Alevi informants recall that when they were children, the rich Rum children used to exclude them because they were kıro. Nuri said:

When we wore shorts, t-shirts, and sunglasses, they [Rums] used to belittle us and make fun of us. I was very upset about this because it was as if we did not have the right to wear these clothes and accessories. The Rums behaved as if they owned the sun and the summer.

Those, who make the hegemonic claims in Burgaz are those, who “own the sun, the summer and the sea.” Similar to Öz and Eder (2018); Celik (2017); Çelik and Gough (2014), who build on Lefèbvre’s (1967) right to the city; Burgaz islanders ask, “who owns the sea, the sun and the summer?” While the permanent Rum inhabitants could balance labour and leisure, such as fishing, then eating and drinking and having fun in gazinos, the Alevis/Erzincanlı could only work and missed out from the fun. As there were more work in the summer, they missed out the most from the summer fun, the sun and the sea. They had very long hours in doing a set of menial jobs back-to-back, helping the fisherman and then carrying luggage and boxes of the summer inhabitants and so on; they did not have the time and the energy to enjoy the island, such as swimming. As they came from Erzincan, which is formed of mountains, hills and valleys, where people do agriculture and farming, they also did not know the life of the seamen. Alevis/Erzincanlı’s embodiment of Burgaz was different than the rest of the islanders. They embodied Burgaz through labour, hardship and tensions. They have also learnt labour from the Rums, such as how to fish, how to cook it and serve it, how to make mezes and so on. They have embodied Burgaz through fighting with other kids, when they played marbles on the street. Many Erzincanlı also recall that they used to speak Rumca. The islanders, regardless of their faith and class, all knew Rumca. Nuri also recalled that Rum women treated them well, giving food and clothes to them and being hospitable towards Alevi children. This also raises a significant gender issue, because, while there was tension between the male Rum employers and the male Alevi employees, the Rum women apparently behaved in a maternal way towards Alevi children. While Nuri articulated that it was hard for them to adapt to island life and that there was tension between the previous settlers and themselves, he also emphasised that he was a part of the island conviviality, attending church, playing marbles and fighting with Rum children. All of these class-based bitter-sweet memories of conviviality comprised of labour, hardship and some fun, made Burgaz his home. The frictions and tensions are not attributed to ethnic and religious differences, as they would be referred in practices of coexistence/toleration, but to differences in socio-economic backgrounds and lifestyles. In that sense, the conviviality that Nuri was part of was not a passive, non-interference type of coexistence/toleration, but is an active interaction and bonding that was learnt through playing, participating as well as fighting.

Similar to the relationship between the Rums and the Alevis/Erzincanlı, the Kurds (from Muş, Van and Ağrı), who settled to the island later (in 1980s onwards) had frictions with the Alevis/Erzincanlı. While some Alevis/Erzincanlı, share similar ethnicity with the Kurds from south-eastern Turkey, they differ in terms of faith and lifestyle. Alevis (of Zaza, Kurdish, Turkmen descent) from Eastern Anatolia, like Dersim, are mostly Kemalist, secular, more left wing and progressive, while most of the Kurds from the South-Eastern Anatolia (Muş, Van and Ağrı), are Sunnis, and can be more conservative in lifestyle, practising religion and supporting the AKP, for instance. Those from Erzincan are mostly Alevis, and those from Muş, Van and Ağrı are mostly Sunni Kurds, and when each group would like to mark the difference in lifestyle and religion between them in a reductionist way, they might use the binary of “us” and “them.” For instance, when a Kurdish Alevi from Erzincan/Dersim region reflects about their way of living, their Kemalist and secular ideology, the importance of women in the society; they might talk about the Sunni Kurdish man or woman from Muş, Ağrı or Van as “they are more conservative” or “they have less gender inequality.” One can hence mark socio-economic, religious and lifestyle differences between these two groups, when they talk about each other. In a similar way to how Alevis/Erzincanlı felt some kind of oppression from the Rum inhabitants, the Sunni Kurds from south-eastern Anatolia were also challenged by the Alevis/Erzincanlı. In this way, oppression of the new coming migrants from lower-economic status and their upward social mobility through hard work, savings, buying property and then passing the oppression to the next set of migrants is “nöbetleşe yoksulluk” (taking turns in poverty) (Işık and Pınarcıoğlu 2012). Işık and Pınarcıoğlu (2012) conceptualised this phenomenon as such, when they explored gentrification and the migration from rural Anatolian villages to urban settings, in Istanbul. New migrants go through the same patterns of poverty, work, oppression and when they move upwards, and behave similarly to the new settlers.

And still today, power is negotiated between those, who has the right to the sea, the sun and the summer, and those do not. Those who “own the sun, the sea and the summer” are wealthy summer inhabitants from all ethnic and religious backgrounds. They own or rent the most beautiful houses on the island, and most of them have a membership to one of the two social clubs on Burgaz. These two social clubs are near the harbour and in a way block the entry to the sea. Before these clubs were built, the islanders swam in the sea, right there. The enclosure of space (see Jeffrey et al., 2012) blocking the access to the seaside and the exclusive membership of these social clubs are apprehended by those, who cannot afford membership. One of my Alevi informants, who cannot afford this price, told me with contempt: “people built the clubs at the best places on the island and exclude other people from using that space. Those people block the access to the sea, why do they have an exclusive right to the sea and to the beauty of the island?” In the next section, I explore exclusions of conviviality and the negotiation of space, class, ideology and hegemonic claims among the islanders.

Social Clubs: Class Difference, Inclusions and Exclusions

Bourdieu (2010) in his Distinction argues that tastes and lifestyles are class bounded and that those who have high level of cultural and economic capital have similar tastes, lifestyles activities and hobbies that they can afford and enjoy. Building on Lefèbvre (1991) and Bourdieu (2010), what I would like to show in this section is that those, who are from the upper-middle class make hegemonic claims in terms of who have access to the social clubs and what kind of club lifestyle they should have. Nonetheless, unlike in Distinction (Bourdieu 2010), the upper-middle-class inhabitants have a variety of tastes and lifestyles on the island. Around seventy percent of the summer inhabitants pass their time in the two social clubs. The common ground among members is financial status and education, both of which provide access to similar professional and social opportunities. Those summer islanders, who choose not to join the clubs either cannot afford their fees or do not like the “club style” of living, in which members spend the entire summer in one bounded, modern construct and in which one socialises with the same people every day. For example, some actors, journalists and writers (who have the cultural capital and who might also have the economic capital) often prefer not to join the clubs. Instead, they choose less visible and less crowded places to socialise, and to enjoy the sea and the sun. They might choose a bay, sit or lie on the rocks on the shore, and swim in various entry points to the sea.

The physical boundaries of the social clubs translate into social boundaries between members and non-members. This social division may also be perceived as a class division, as many people perceive the failure to join a social club as an inability to pay its fees. As the summer is the time for the permanent inhabitants to make money, even though some of them can afford it, they do not have time to relax in social clubs, hence they cannot be a part of the club lifestyle. While the summer people enjoy the sea, relax and use the clubs as leisure places, these are places of work for the permanent inhabitants. The social division of labour prevents the permanent islanders to take part in the sociable sociality of the summer inhabitants. This is something that we can see in the social clubs, where the summer inhabitants are bathing, chilling and playing games in their tanned skin and bathing suits, while the permanent islanders are working, sweating in their t-shirts and pants/shorts attached to their untanned skin. The people who work in the social clubs as waiters, cleaners and security are among the permanent inhabitants and are mainly Sunni Turks and Kurds, and Alevi Zazas and Kurds. The differences between the club members, who lounge and sunbathe and the waiters, who serve them in t-shirts and trousers become etched on their skin through the evenness or not of their suntans. They also become visible as bodies in motion: While the members relax and nap, swim or suntan, the waiters whirl around them, serving teas, refreshments, sandwiches, salads and snacks. Even though, we see the exclusion of the permanent islanders from the sociable sociality of Burgaz, they are still a part of the island conviviality, because their bodies experience the hardship of work, of running under the heat, serving food and drinks and hence they know that they produce the food and the services for the islanders and then in winter it will be their time to relax and enjoy the calm of the island, while the summer inhabitants will be back at work.

Once I was on the boat from Burgaz to Istanbul to go to a concert and I saw a few Burgazlı, whom called for me “come Deniz sit here, join our muhabbet (chat).” One of the organising committee members of the social club (Sunni Muslim), Onur, was sitting next to Hüseyin, one of the workers (Zaza Alevi). Hüseyin works for some of the inner constructions of the club. Onur told me “Deniz, meet Hüseyin, he is one of the eski (early settler) islanders. Hüseyin and I can tell you how the island used to be.” Hüseyin said, “My family moved to Burgaz in the 1960s form Erzincan when I was 14. Since then, I have done all sorts of work.” Onur jumped in “yes Hüseyin is very hardworking.” Hüseyin continued: “After having lived in Burgaz for 41 years on the island, it was the first time I have climbed to Hristos.” Hristos is at the peak of the island, has an amazing view over the Princes’ Islands and Istanbul (Fig. 4.5) and it is a place, where the islanders go for a picnic, chill under the trees and enjoy the view. Onur joked: “you people of the centre, you never go up and to other places on the island and enjoy the nature and the beauties of the island!” Hüseyin replied: “I have been working like a donkey and never had the time for such pleasures.” Onur said in a quieter and embarrassed tone “yes, you are right…” This conversation marks the ways in which Burgaz is experienced as a space of leisure by the upper-middle-class summer islanders, while it is a space of work for the permanent inhabitants. Sometimes, the summer inhabitants might forget this difference.

Fig. 4.5

Sunset from Hristos (photo taken by the author)

In terms of conviviality, the social clubs on the one hand try to create a collective space where the islanders can socialise and raise their children together. The children of Burgaz can be members without paying the fee, if they swim or play water polo for the Sports Club team. If they play until the age of eighteen, then they become permanent members without paying the membership (one off lump sum), however they still need to pay the yearly fee, for every year they want to come to the social club. For instance, the Burgaz islanders with lower socio-economic backgrounds, who moved to Burgaz for employment reasons could not afford to be a member of the club. However, their children, who played for Burgaz team became club members. During the 30 August Victory Day races, the non-member parents go to cheer up their children during the races. This shows the club’s appreciation for sports and for raising the island’s children together. Children learn to compete with each other and become lifelong friends. This highlights the importance of bonding, of Burgaz children to grow together, of building solidarity through playing and competing against each other and of becoming more than friends, almost like kin. This also reflects their self-representation of being Burgazlı as being a part of a big family.

On the other hand, the social clubs imply exclusive conviviality by promoting a club lifestyle, which is rather luxurious and excludes lower-class, lower-income islanders from being part of the club sociable sociality. The social clubs then strive to create an environment that reproduces a sense of privilege. Those, who run the clubs decide on the rules of inclusion and exclusion based on their values and political ideology. For instance, they value sports and would like all Burgaz children to grow together. The organising committee members of the Sports Club (SC) are mostly Kemalists, sometimes nationalists. They stress their Kemalist ideology, which includes following Atatürk’s reforms such as secularism, and being attached to the Turkish nation and to the Turkish Republic (Ahmad 2002, 81). SC organises concerts, music and dance nights, 30 August Victory Day parties and dinners, and celebrations of the foundation of the SC. All the children of the island compete in swimming races on the victory day, 30th of August each year, the last day of “kicking the enemies out of the country” in 1922. The organisers of the SC give emotive talks on the Victory Day about the end of the Turkish independence war. As everywhere in Turkey, the national anthem is sung. All the children have Atatürk pictures and Turkish flags in their hands. Many workers and waiters in the club are Alevis, who also support the secularist ideology. For instance, Alevis consume alcohol, do not wear headscarf, do not fast during Ramadan, are fond of Atatürk and secularism, and politically object to the dominance of Sunni Islam. In a way secularism is a resistance mechanism for the Alevis to fight against the domination of Sunni Islam. Hence, Alevis also “fit” very well as members, workers and waiters in the club.

I came across a rule of exclusion to the SC, at the end of my fieldwork in 2010. I gave two presentations about the raw findings of my fieldwork data to the islanders in August 2010, before I left to the UK to write up my PhD thesis. One presentation was at the SC club and another one in Ay Yorgi. One of my embroidery class friends, a woman in her forties, who wore a headscarf, came to listen to my fieldwork presentation in the SC club. The security told me that normally she (or anyone who wears a headscarf) would not be allowed there, but they let her in as she was there to listen to my presentation. Not allowing women with headscarf can be/is articulated as a discourse of intoleration; nonetheless, when it comes to practice, this is not strictly applied. Nobody has reminded of “such a rule of exclusion” to my embroidery class friend with the headscarf, who entered the SC and listened to my presentation.

Debates between secularists and Islamists revolve around the issue of women’s dress. The contestation between these two groups has made women the centre of attention of politics of gender (see Göle 1997; Kaya 2013). In 1924, the Kemalist government implemented a dress code law, prohibiting all public display of religion, rejecting the veiling of women, with the aim of Westernisation and modernisation of the citizens of the Republic (Kaya 2013, 161). This prevented women with veil or headscarf to work in public institutions, or study, for instance. Since then, headscarf has been a point of contestation of power and polarisation among Islamists and secularists. The governments at different times inserted and lifted the ban of headscarf in public places (see Kaya 2013 for the changes of law regarding headscarf ban). During the years of my fieldwork (2009–2010), the headscarf was discussed in a heated way. Right before my presentation in the SC, in July 2010, the Board of Higher education had lifted the headscarf ban at universities, with the argumentation that it prevents women to get education and that the ban is against the fundamental rights secured by the constitution and the European Constitution of Human Rights (Kaya 2013, 165). Following that, while some universities lifted the ban, some kept it. Today, even though there is no headscarf ban, it is a social issue of contestation in between those, who consider themselves to be secular and those religious ones. Some secularists see the headscarf both as a symbol against Kemalism and Atatürk, and as a display of Islamist political ideology. For instance, secularist women refer to Atatürk’s change of dress code, banning veil and headscarf and stress that Atatürk liberated women from the constraints of religion (Navaro-Yashin 2002, 21). Nonetheless, wearing a headscarf can have many different underlying reasons, such as being modest, conservative, traditional, or to wear it for working in the field. Nonetheless, wearing a headscarf cannot be reduced to the display of modesty; as an over focus on the politics of the headscarf as a symbol of negotiating modesty in public undermines the different forms of modesty regarding women’s visibility in the public, such as manners, behaviour, body language posture, and language used (see Sehlikoglu 2021).

On the island, those who were referred as “Second Republicans (Ikinci Cumhuriyetçiler)” had a more liberal attitude towards wearing a headscarf and support more freedom regarding the minorities, Kurds and Alevis. The committee of SC was not in agreement with the Second Republicans in Burgaz. The committee had a rather exclusive attitude towards women with headscarf. Being a devout practising Muslim man or a woman was not the issue of toleration for the social club. There are people, who pray namaz and or fast, and refuse drinking alcohol and they can be a member or they can enter the club after 7 pm, when the SC is open to everyone. Having a Muslim life is perfectly fine in the SC, as long as it is not “too visible,” like wearing a headscarf. As Kaya (2013) argues the headscarf debate focused more on the appearance of women in the public space, evokes a discourse of toleration as allowance rather than evaluating it as an issue of freedom of religion.

Nonetheless, both exclusions, the one due to class difference and the one due to political ideology were negotiated: the club doors are open after 7 pm, and all day long in the winter time; non-members can have tea, eat or to just hang out in the evening. Everyone can watch movies (both foreign and Turkish films) that are screened for free at the SC every Tuesday evening. Hence the non-members can join the conviviality in the clubs in the evenings. Nonetheless, this rule still prevents their access to the sea in the day time during the summer time. My friend from the embroidery class, who wore a headscarf could still enter the SC club to listen to my presentation, where members, non-members of the club and some people from the organising committee were also present. In SC, there are battles of egos especially among the men. When men disagree with each other about rules and regulations in the SC, about discussing political news they have read in the newspaper, or about daily matters, they can quarrel with each other. These battles of egos and power sometimes include ideology disagreements, which can trigger discourses of intoleration; but they are negotiated as practices of everyday coexistence, because they still allow people to share the same space even though temporarily. Exclusive conviviality limits the time of contact with those from different classes and ideologies, nonetheless, the tensions and frictions that are caused by it are negotiated and solved. I have not come across the headscarf to be an issue of exclusion in other places on Burgaz, especially among the permanent women Burgaz islanders. I attended the embroidery class that runs throughout winter. The attending women were permanent Burgaz islanders, who ranged from wealthy Kemalist women, to Sunni Muslims of Turkish and Kurdish ethnicity with different socio-economic backgrounds. Some wear a headscarf and some do not. There are also money or gold rotating groups, which are a type of rotation credit associations (see Ardener 1964; Khatib-Chahidi 1995), where a group of women agree on a sum of money or a small piece of gold; who and how many people join this rotation group; how often they meet/make a reunion (e.g. one a month, or every two weeks): they take turns in hosting the reunion at their home, cook and prepare food and refreshments; every woman gives the agreed amount of money (or piece of gold) to the host. In Turkey and Cyprus, the reunion day is called “gün” (day) (see Khatib-Chahidi 1995). For instance, if they agree in bringing, each, 200 liras for every gün to give to the host, and there are ten women in the rotation group, then the host gets 2000 liras on the day when she hosts the reunion. Like this, each host, when it is their turn, get 2000 liras. This helps each woman to save money and use it for whatever they need (e.g. buy a new washing machine). I also observed one money rotation group among Sunni Muslim women, who practised Islam, and they were a mixed group, some with a headscarf, some without. I did not participate in the exchange of money; however, I tried to attend every gün as possible, brought something to eat and share, helped the host to prepare, played with the small children of the guests or the host, and helped cleaning up. During both the embroidery class and the rotation group, the women enjoyed sociable sociality.

The SC is still one of the most mixed places on the island. Rums, Armenians, some Jews, Suryanis, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Italians, Levantines, Muslims and Germans are among the 2000–2500 members of the club, who are willing and able to pay the steep membership costs. They use the swimming pools, benefit from the facilities, swim in the sea, sunbathe, eat, drink and socialise. Permanent/life-long membership cost 22,500 TL in 2019 (3000 GBP in 2019), which is quite high for a country where the minimum monthly wage used to be around 2500 TL in 2019. Once you become a permanent member, you only pay 1500 TL (200 GBP) per season for each member of your family. The parents, the spouse and the children count as family members; however, siblings or cousins do not. If you want to become a member for one season only, it cost 5000 TL (650 GBP) per person. Whenever the members have guests, the guest has to pay around 100 liras (12 GBP) during weekdays, and double the price at the weekends. Thus, if you are not a member or you do not know anyone who can let you in as a guest, you are not allowed to enter the club during the daytime. Joining the club is also one way of building friendships and perform sociable sociality, so some new summer inhabitants become members to meet people and build networks.

One might expect the SC members to be rather homogenous in terms of having similar tastes and lifestyles as they belong to upper-middle class, like in Bourdieu’s Distinction (2010). However, we rather see many different fragmentations of people, who cluster in groups of similar age, political views, gender and tastes. For example, a section of the club that is covered and looks like a green cage is the area primarily used by the organisers and committee of the SC. The “green cage” is at the very end of the club and relatively detached from the rest of the club. Most of those, who use the “green cage” are men, who read newspapers and work on their laptops. Their small talk tends to be about politics and football. Their wives are divided into two groups, the ones who prefer the shade and the ones who want to suntan and become as dark as they can. The women who prefer the shade pick the “green cage” or the tables underneath the huge parasol. They play scrabble, talk about daily news, politics and gossip or use their laptops to check Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Older people choose to sit next to the café, because it is shaded and cooler, the chairs are more comfortable, and they can order teas, refreshments and snacks more easily. The women, who are fond of sunbathing sit in the sun away from the huge parasol. The people with children sit by the children’s swimming pool at the entrance of the club. The young people prefer to lie down on big cushions or chaise-longues at the edge of the swimming pool, which is distant from the children’s pool, the cafe and older people. This part is not under the shade, thus young people sunbathe there. Friendship groups are ethnically and linguistically mixed, nonetheless, people, who speak the same languages and who are from the same ethnic and religious backgrounds also sit together. While passing through different tables, I heard Armenians, Germans and Rums speaking in their own language to each other. People mostly speak Turkish, but people, who grew up together on Burgaz are polyglots, and they switch between Rumca, Italian, French, German and Armenian. Those, who know each other from the church also sometimes sit together. For instance, after having been to the Rum-Orthodox mass on Sunday, some Rums might sit together in the club and converse in Rumca, and some Catholics might sit together as well. People change language according to the linguistic knowledge of the ones who join. These groups do not always remain the same. Depending on the activity, scrabble, embroidery or having tea, people hop around from one group to another. These friendship groups are organic in the sense that people hang out with those they have something in common, which could be liking the sun, or disliking it, sharing similar ethnicity, language or religion, being of the same age range or having small children.

The Blue Social Club has different patterns of conviviality than the SC. The BC members have a more luxurious lifestyle. The members can cluster themselves into groups of similar age, gender and liking similar games. In the morning, the elderly people sit at the entrance of the club, where it is quieter and shadier or play cards or billiard on the second floor. “Oldies but goldies” slow songs in French, Spanish and English are played in the morning. After 2–3 pm, when it gets very hot and the music gets louder, the elderly leave. More upbeat tracks start being played and the music is much louder than in the SC. Young people in the BC come to the club to have fun, dance, drink and socialise. People dance on the chaise-longues and couples kiss each other. It is a bit like Bodrum, a touristic place in south-western Turkey. The people act more freely in the BC. You would not see couples kissing each other in the SC or so visibly on the streets of the island. In the evening, the music turns into disco/club music. It is said that young people go there to find a boy or a girlfriend. People like to display their wealth, with the clothes they put on, and the brands they use. Once, I met with my high school friend at the BC. Two of her friends (young men in their mid-twenties) wanted to have barbeque in the garden of their house in the evening and needed to get some meat. Instead of buying the meat from the butchers on Burgaz, as an act of showing off, they paid an extravagant price to hire a Jet Ski. They jumped on the Jet Ski in front of the BC, so that the other young people see them get on it and they went to Bostancı, on the Asian side, to buy some meat.

The BC is exclusive to non-members, and have only some occasions for non-members such as breaking the fast dinner (iftar) during Ramadan for Muslims of Burgaz. Holding iftar meal at the BC is performance of pluralism in the form of labour of peace (see Bryant 2016 and Chap. 6). The BC organise more concerts, events, costume parties for children, charity events, discos and national victory day dinner. Permanent membership of the Blue Club is more expensive than in the Sports Clubs and cost around 4000 GBP in 2019. There are 2500–3000 members in the BC. The daily guest visitor price is a little bit less than the SC. The BC was built in 1934 by Sunni Muslim elites, who settled on the island as summer inhabitants. They wanted to have a social place, and see their children grow up together. According to what Orhan said, his father, one of the club founders, recalled that they were not able to get enough members, so when they kept asking people around to sign up for free, many Jewish Burgazlı became a member. While more and more Jewish people migrated to Burgaz, they kept signing up. In 1964, the Sports Club was founded as a reaction to the Blue Social Club, as a club that promoted sports instead of having fun, playing cards, games and so on. Hence, Blue Social Club was not built by the Jewish people, with an intention to be a Jewish club, but it was founded as a mixed club and continued to be a mixed club until 1964 when the SC club opened. The BC members, who wanted a sportier lifestyle, hence joined the SC. The Jewish people had been enjoying the “sosyetik” (which means haute societé), posh and chic atmosphere of the BC, so they remained in the BC club. However, this luxurious lifestyle, higher socio-economic status along with the kal door and the club door being closed (see Brink-Danan 2011 and Chaps. 5 and 6) makes the Jewish be seen as a closed community in Burgaz. Here, exclusive conviviality based on luxurious lifestyle overlaps with the discourse of coexistence/toleration, in the sense that the Jewish people in Burgaz socialise more intensely among each other as most of them are members of the Blue Club and that they spent the day time there.

Nonetheless, the club members of BC and SC have various habits of socialising outside of the clubs. Some club members only hang out with their club friends in the club and not outside the clubs. One of my SC informants told me that she wanted to invite her club friends to her house and one woman replied her that on the island people do not go to each other’s houses. They feel that as they spend already a lot of time together in the clubs, then they do not wish to spend additional time with their club friends outside of the club. Some others socialise outside of the club. They play cards at kahve, they go out for dinner, they invite each other for meals, to visit other islands and Istanbul for concerts and exhibitions and they meet up in winter.

In the next section, I explore the ways in which Burgaz islanders cluster into different groups based on common tastes, lifestyles, gender, class and ideology and share the space on Burgaz. I also investigate the exclusivity of Burgaz islanders towards the non-islanders, to describe the ways in which they distinguish themselves as Burgaz islanders based on their conviviality, collective Burgaz culture and habitus.

Being Burgazlı Versus Others: Exclusive Diversity

Within their sense of belonging to Burgaz and their identity of being Burgazlı, the islanders articulate some contempt towards the tourists, the günübirlikçi (day trippers), who come to visit the island for a day. The islanders complain about those, who come to swim at its bays, and those, who come for gastronomy tourism (see Schild 2021). This contempt is an important exclusion of Burgaz islanders, because these daytrippers are not part of the conviviality of the island; they have not embodied the diversity of the island and they do not value it. This is very much similar to Örs’ (2018, 72) “exclusive diversity” of the Rum Polites, who, on the one hand, value cosmopolitanism and openness to diversity, as those, who have lived in the “Polis” (Istanbul, the City), who have the knowledge and experience with living with diversity, who, on the other hand, are selective of which kinds of diversity forms a part of this cultural diversity. For instance, for the Rum Polites, while urban lifestyle is a part of this valued diversity, Anatolian rural lifestyles are “out.”

The summer inhabitants despise the daytrippers for “invading” their island and filling its restaurants, especially during the weekends, forgetting the realm that the salary of the permanent islanders depend to a great extent on the daytrippers, in the spring, summer and autumn. The summer inhabitants point out that daytrippers are mostly after consuming food with their friends, or swimming in the bays, or eating some of the fruit growing on the trees, or ripping off the mimosas, when it is mimosa time. While their time is squeezed to one day, it is more about getting as much as they can, as quickly as possible. However, for the islanders, time is extended, you do not need to rush, and one is gentle and protective of the island, whether it is its bays, beaches, fruit, flowers or trees. Burgaz survived several fires and it is believed that some were due to the rubbish and glasses left by those daytrippers. Some islanders even speculate that these fires are planned by those who are jealous of Burgaz. Many islanders articulate that “bad things come from outside of the island, not within or from the islanders” (“Kötü şeyler dışarıdan gelir, adanın içinden olmaz, adalı yapmaz” my own translation).

The islanders complain about two types of daytrippers. The first type is those, who come with their mats and food, and lie down to sunbathe and swim. Similar to the “yabancılar (strangers) [who] include a wide range of groups (itinerant merchants, travelers, street beggars and many others whose members are typically known both to reside outside of the town and to cross community boundaries” with whom the town inhabitants do not have to interact with (Ilcan 1999, 244), the islanders refer to the daytrippers as “dışarıdan” meaning people from outside [the island]. They leave the bays messy and dirty. Some wear baggy trousers and swim with their clothes on. Wise uses the term “haptic habitus” to refer to the “sensuous and embodied modes of being” (Wise 2010, 917). The manners of these daytrippers, the food they eat, the loud arabesk or pop music they listen to, and their clothing, their Anatolian lifestyles clash with the “haptic habitus” of the islanders. In contrast to the “strangers […] pleasing to the eye” (Ilcan 1999, 244), these daytrippers do not please the islanders’ eye or ear. These günübirlikçi are similar to the “heterogeneous immigrants from Anatolia” (Keyder 1999; Geniş 2007), whom the inhabitants of the gated communities in Istanbul would like to avoid.

The second type is formed of those, who have the money, and who come for “gastronomic Burgaz” as named by Schild (2021, 27), a type of daily tourism based on the consumption of food and drinks. They eat at the restaurants and hence at weekends or winter days when the weather is good, they “invade” the restaurants. The restaurant owners make special cheaper prices for the islanders, while the prices are higher for the tourists. They “occupy” the places, where the islanders like to eat and have tea and coffee and spend their time with friends. Many islanders had even told me “Deniz, in your book, write bad things about Burgaz (Burgaz’ı kötüle), so that others do not come here, so that ada (island) remains untouched (ada bozulmasın).”

The division between Burgaz islanders and “others” reflect the cultural intimacy (Herzfeld 2005) among Burgaz islanders and the islanders’ sense of belonging in Burgaz. Similar to the other small islands like the Greek islands Kalymnos (Sutton 2001) and Meganisi (Just 2000), Burgaz islanders have a strong sense of community in the ways in which they differentiate themselves from other Princes’ Islands for being more diverse and showing a stronger sense of community solidarity. They see Büyükada, urbanised, neoliberalised and lost in cosmopolitanness, and Heybeliada to be more nationalist and intolerant towards diversity. Importantly, while some of the working-class Sunni and Alevi inhabitants of Burgaz have their origins in the same regions as the daytrippers, who come to the bays, the Burgaz Alevi and Sunnis are Burgazlı, because they are part of the Burgaz conviviality; they live, work and engage in economic and social relations with the inhabitants. Within the usta/çırak (master/apprentice) relationship between the Rum shop owners, and Sunni and Alevis, the latter have learnt how to cook mezes and fish in the Rum way, while some also learnt to converse in Rumca. They internalised Rum ways of cooking, talking and eating, who perform Rum ways of eating and drinking, especially in the restaurants they run.

Following the migrations from rural parts of Anatolia to bigger cities in Turkey, there has been an increasing literature on gated communities in big cities, for instance, in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir (Keyder 1999; Geniş 2007; Aksoy 2012). This literature explored the ways in which the middle-class inhabitants of the cities, who could not want to deal anymore with the working-class migrants from Anatolia in their neighbourhoods and work places, moved to suburbs to live with people, who belonged to the same middle class, and who, shared similar life styles. The migrations from Eastern and South-eastern Turkey prior to 1990s were motivated for economic reasons, while after 1990s, the insecurity due to Kurdish insurgencies forced the migration of Kurdish inhabitants from their region of origin to big cities in Western Turkey (Keyder 1999). Furthermore, since the mid-1980s, the physical landscape of Istanbul, affected by globalisation and neo-liberal trends, has changed through gentrification of old neighbourhoods, the construction of malls, shopping centres, gated communities and gecekondus (squatters, literary translated as built over night). The neo-liberal policies of the state in Turkey affected the housing sector and the new real estate agents promoted gated communities in Istanbul such as in Zekeriyakoy, Bahcelievler, and Kemer country as a solution to the chaotic life in the city (Geniş 2007). The prestige gated communities (upper-income people where the exclusivity is based on status) and lifestyle gated communities (both upper and middle-income people based on life style choice in a socioeconomically homogeneous environment) show local appropriations of the effect of globalisation (Geniş 2007). These gated communities were formed of homogeneous groups sharing similar economic, social and cultural capital and lifestyle, coming from similar socioeconomic, educational and political backgrounds—modern, secular, middle-class, highly educated, high-status people—who wanted to escape the sociocultural and socioeconomic diversity of Istanbul.

Because of the location of the Princes’ Islands, the presence of old mansions with sea views, and the high number of wealthy non-Muslim inhabitants, non-islander Istanbul residents often depict the islands as upper-class, elite and exclusive, and hence it is tempting to compare them to the new phenomenon of gated communities. This discourse of Princes’ Islands to be upper-class, elite resort places is also present in Couroucli’s research (2010) as well as in Edgü and Cimşit’s (2011) paper, where the latter hypothesises the Princes’ Islands as gated communities due to their being islands and where middle-class people (mostly summer inhabitants) have similar lifestyles away from the chaos of the city.

One should explore the effect of islandness in the ways in which I attempt to do in this book, by paying attention to how its smallness, the intensity of intimacy, its boundedness and connections with wider national and global networks and politics have an impact of the social relations, sense of community, belonging and Burgaz identity (see Baldacchino 2006; Baldacchino 2004; Baldacchino and Veenendaal 2018; Royle and Brinklow 2018; Just 2000; Skinner 2002). It will not be right to describe Burgaz and other Princes’ Islands as gated communities for the following two reasons. First, there is no control or check on who comes to the island. Whoever buys the ticket of the boat, or has the Istanbul public transport card, can get to Burgaz within 30 minutes from Bostancı (Anatolian site) and about an hour from Kabataş (European side). Especially, Büyükada and Kınalıada receive an excessive number of daytrippers. The only time when entry to Burgaz and to other Princes’ Islands was controlled was during the Covid-19 pandemic, when a set of curfews and lock-downs were implemented by the state to every citizen. Controls were also done at the harbours, such as checking the residence of the people. Those, who had permanent residence on the islands were allowed to come in and out of Burgaz. For instance, many summer inhabitants, whose residency is in Istanbul could not enter the island.

Secondly, Burgaz, like the other Princes’ Islands, does not have the same class and lifestyle homogeneity as in gated communities. To the contrary, island population is heterogeneous not only in terms of ethnicity and religion, but also in terms of class difference and different lifestyles. Waiters, seasonal workers, those who used to be horse cart drivers and menial laborers are mostly of Kurdish origin from south-eastern Turkey or of Turkic nationalities (e.g. Azerbaycan, Turkmenistan). Stablehands, who used to live in the ahır (barn) area, further up and towards the back end of the island, were dominated by these groups. While it is accurate to state that the parameters of the Princes’ Islands, their small size, their liminality and their reachability being restricted to the schedules of ferries might increase a sense of belonging to the island (see Edgü and Cimşit 2011), the islands differ from gated communities in terms of the diversity of lifestyles. While the inhabitants of gated communities shop from supermarkets, play golf, go to fitness by leading a more “Western,” luxurious and urban upper-middle-class lifestyle (Geniş 2007, Aksoy 2012), Burgaz island life more closely resembles to village life as described by Herzfeld (1988) and Delaney (2001), where people shop from grocers, small shops and fishermen, and drop by to chat with the shop owner. The islanders appreciate the modesty, simplicity, the rough nature, marginality, even sometimes the lack of good internet or phone signals on the island, in opposition to a more comfortable, modern, urban life. The producers, service providers and consumers form intimate friendships, which challenge the boundaries of client/customer relations (see Chap. 6). Islanders’ everyday interactions across classes, between summer and permanent inhabitants, customers and clients of restaurants and shop owners, form an important part of conviviality on the island. Different lifestyles coexist in Burgaz. One can live a socially intense and luxurious lifestyles at the social clubs, where membership is compulsory. One can also live a modest, simple and even an isolated lifestyle, by hanging out at various bays on the island, in their garden, veranda or terrasse. One can also pursue a village life. When you walk behind the Alevi Cemevi, you will see distorted, small pathways, muddy and soily roads, tiny houses, chickens and roosters running around, washing including pants, shirts, skirts, underwear hanging out in the garden. (Fig. 4.6)

Fig. 4.6

Village life on Burgaz (photo taken by the author)

The islanders choose where to hang out according to the affordability, but also according to the activities that are offered in different places of commensality. The islanders form cleavages based on gender, age, ideology/political view and lifestyle. Restaurants and cafes have their tables on the streets, which create fluidity between the clients and the strollers. These restaurants and cafes face the sea. They get very busy after dinner, usually 9 p.m. onwards, when people start strolling on the restaurant street and also sit for some time to watch others strolling. These are places where you go to see people and to be seen. People wave at each other, bump into friends, go from one table to another, from one cafe to a restaurant or vice versa, gossip about who is wearing what, who was seen with whom, who has not been around for a while, who does not talk with whom anymore, who dates whom, who cheats on whom, broken friendships, new friendships formed, they laugh, and make each other jealous showing off new clothes.

To eat in a restaurant by the sea cost around 500 TL (25 GBP), which was very expensive taking into account that the minimum monthly wage was around 6000 TL (in 2022). People, who eat at the restaurants are usually the summer inhabitants, consisting of members of both the majority (Sunni Muslim) and minority (Rum, Armenian, Jewish) populations, as well as day visitors. People dress well to eat out. Women have their hair up, wear make-up and perfume, and sometimes high heels. Men dress in a casual smart way, by wearing a shirt and jumper from well-known brands. Some of the restaurants have their “permanent clients” who eat breakfast, lunch and dinner there every day. Jewish, Rum and Armenian groups have dinner with their family or groups of friends but also in mixed groups: people from different ethno-religious groups, with members and non-members of the social clubs. At this point, high economic capital intersects ethnic and religious cleavages. These mixed groups share a similar lifestyle, eating out at restaurants and not cooking at home for instance. Sociality is about consuming food together outside the house. Who you socialise with depends on the sharing similar tastes and lifestyles. For instance, one of the restaurant owners told me that in Ramadan (the holy month during which the Muslims fast), she prepares an iftar table for Sunni Muslims in the evening, when they break the fast, and a drinking menu for the next table where a mixed group of Sunni Muslims, Jews, Armenians and Rums have dinner. She gave this example to highlight the mutual tolerance between the fasting Muslims and the non-practising Muslims and non-Muslims. In some places in Istanbul, fasting Muslims would not want to go to a place, where people consume alcohol when it is Ramadan. Some restaurants might not even serve alcohol during Ramadan. However, in Burgaz, the islanders emphasised that in Burgaz, people let each other do as they wish in terms of practising or not practising their religious duties and to lead a lifestyle they would like to have and this is also why they feel free and at home in Burgaz.

The islanders follow their religion, with different variations and degrees and lead different lifestyles. Some male Sunni Muslims, who go to the mosque for the Friday prayer, drink alcohol regularly. Some do not drink for the whole month of Ramadan, but then drink for the rest of the year. Some Sunni women wear bikinis and swim, while they fast during Ramadan. Some Sunni Muslims do not drink alcohol at all, but sit at the same table with their friends (regardless of their faith), who drink. Some Sunni Muslim women wear headscarves and many do not. Many Alevis do not fast during Ramadan. Some Rum Orthodox and Catholics go to the church on Sunday, some only go at important days and some do not go at all. There is a small portion of Jewish people who go to the synagogue. These are only a name dropping of different degrees, shades and ways of practising religion and ways of living. People also take religious practices from different faiths, which I will explore in the next chapter.

The teahouses, sandwich places, cafes and patisseries are frequented almost every hour of the day. In these places, you can find people from all different ethnic, class and religious backgrounds sitting both in winter and summer. One of the reasons of this heterogeneity is the length of consumption and the affordability of what is consumed. While a meal takes a few to several hours in a restaurant, eating a sandwich, drinking a cup of coffee or tea could take as little as 15 minutes to half an hour. Hence, even the ones who work during the summer can take a break and drop by a café to have tea. Unlike in the restaurants, where people go dressed up, the clients at the cafes wear casual and sportive clothes, such as t-shirts, shorts and jeans, sandals or comfortable flat shoes. You would see people wearing a variety of types of clothing ranging from light beach dresses on top or their bathing suits or bikinis, short skirts and shorts, sleeveless tops to long trousers, long sleeves, long skirts, or more conservative clothing, and/or headscarf. There are only a few of these cafes and patisseries open throughout the whole year. One of them is a very cosy place to pass the cold days of winter by reading newspapers, having breakfast and hot drinks, and chatting to the permanent inhabitants. The waiters, grocers, chefs who have been serving throughout spring, summer and autumn will have time to sit, have tea, enjoy simit (Turkish bagel) with the summer inhabitants, who visit the island to breathe away from the hectic life of Istanbul. During my fieldwork, the winter was the time for me to have longer chats and interviews with the permanent inhabitants, who had more time, as they had less work, who told me their narratives of moving to Burgaz from different parts of Turkey, which Rum employer they worked with, what they learnt and how they bought their current work place and also their current relationships with the customers. We will see in Chap. 6, that depending on the frequency of the customers, the customer/client boundaries do get blurred. The owner might address the clients with their first name. When the class difference is significant, for instance between the waiter and the regular customer, the waiter might address the customer as “Ahmet Ağabey” (elder brother) or “Ayşe Abla” (elder sister), to show respect, to acknowledge the status difference.

At cafes and patisseries, whose clients are socio-economically heterogeneous, there are cleavages based on tastes. People, who like to play backgammon or cards socialise at kahve (coffee shop), which is open to everyone in summer throughout the day and night. In difference to the coffee shops, as settings of masculine socialities, where men socialise, spend an important part of their day, by playing backgammon, cards or okey (a sort of rummikub game), discussing all sorts of matters ranging from news, politics, football, economics and where women’s presence is not permitted (see Saglam 2020), in Burgaz, during the summer time both men and women play backgammon or cards in kahve until the early hours of the morning. There is much less gender segregation between the summer inhabitants (upper-middle class), and sociality is enjoyed in the company of both men and women in summer, and more among the permanent inhabitants (lower-middle and/or working class). Similar to gendered sociability in the Mediterranean (Kennedy 1986; Cowan 1991; Herzfeld 1988; Dubisch 1986; Loizos and Papataxiarchēs 1991; Papataxiarchis 1991; Mitchell 2002), men and women tend to socialise separately, in Burgaz, while the permanent female inhabitants hang out with each other in houses doing embroidery, or in cafes; men work or hang out with their friends during the day and watch football games in the evenings. Kahve is used exclusively by men in winter. In kahve, the shop owners usually have tea, play backgammon, cards and okey. When there are fewer jobs and clients on Burgaz in winter, the permanent male inhabitants socialise in kahve.

The ones who are not members of the social clubs hang out in the bays. Bays have very limited facilities; hence the activities and commensality depends on the people, who use these bays. Opposite one bay, there is a café, which has tables and chairs, some bean bags, parasols. A few bays rent chaise-longues and parasols but no food or drinks are offered. Some bays have nothing but rocks and some pine trees. Hence, depending on the taste of the person, whether it is lying on hard rocks under the shadow of a pine tree, eating the peach you have brought; or sitting on a beanbag and having your Turkish coffee served at you, you pick which bay to spend your time and form relationships with people, who have similar tastes, political ideology and habits. The islanders choose their friends not according to their ethnicity or religion, but for various reasons, such as liking to drink during sunset, enjoying lying and tanning themselves or swimming together and sometimes also sharing similar political views. Some people, who are sensitive to sunlight sit together under the shady areas, read novels. People borrow each other’s newspapers, bring fruit, food, wine and cheese, and snacks every day to share with each other. If you normally eat three prunes, you would bring five to offer to those who sit near you. If three women are giving a chocolate cake recipe, it is normal for a fourth one who hears the conversation to add a speciality of her own to the recipe and start a conversation. Islanders extend these bay-friendships to having dinners, brunches and drinks, organising and taking part in social activities such as organising flamenco nights and going to exhibitions in Burgaz and other Princes’ Islands.

Concluding Remarks

The crucial point in this chapter is that Burgaz islanders have the right to live the ways in which they want and this echoes very much Lefebvre’s (1967, 35) right to difference in the ways in which the right to difference is not a celebration of diversity, through giving people spaces where they could live parallel lives, or side-by-side living, but where people can live different lifestyles in proximity, such as in the same neighbourhood (see Dikeç 2001; Dikeç 2002; Öz and Eder 2018), or at the same table in a restaurant. For instance, Öz and Eder (2018) describe problems of spatiality, in the ways in which the inhabitants of Tophane, a district in Istanbul, where contestations and violence (such as attacking and injuring people) occur among its diversity of inhabitants (artists, elites, students, unemployed youth, pious inhabitants). Drinking on the street or showing intimacy like kissing a beloved one is seen not compatible with pious and modest ways in living. Öz and Eder (2018, 1035) highlight that contestations should not be reduced to politics of identity and binaries such as “seculars vs religious/pious/Islamists” or “rich versus poor” but one should understand the complexity of “clashes of norms, resources and political power” in the ways in which people can manage or solve tensions or not.

From what I have seen in Burgaz during my fieldwork and post-fieldwork trips, the islanders respect people’s having different lifestyles and political ideologies, even if they disagree. Exclusions of conviviality, such as in the social clubs, are generated by different political ideologies (e.g. exclusion of headscarf) and class difference (exclusive membership fee). Nonetheless, the tensions and frictions that arise from exclusive conviviality are negotiated and solved as practices of everyday coexistence. For instance, social clubs are exclusive to members who can afford; however, their doors are open to Burgaz children, who play water sports and to non-members in the evenings, and in winter. The islanders form organic groups of friendship based on common tastes, lifestyles, gender, age and political views and choose where to socialise based on these commonalities, at social clubs, bays, cafes, restaurants and in each other’s homes. The new comers become a part of the conviviality through learning, working, sociable sociality as well as through fighting. The islanders negotiate and navigate in between and around different exclusions of conviviality, whether it is class based or affected by ideology. Conviviality as both living together in diversity and living with difference is internalised, and is practised and performed in their everyday life. For instance, the islanders change from one language to another, when another person joins their conversations, sometimes without even realising it. The habitus of Burgaz islanders is heterogeneous and their practices of conviviality show their ability of sharing the way of living, producing everyday life and a sense of place through embodying diversity, enjoying, performing and valuing it (such as in this chapter and the next one), as well as letting people, who might have different lifestyles to perform and practise daily life the ways in which they would like to (such as in this chapter and in Chap. 6).