Özet:

Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the potentials of traditional street markets as an alternative shopping space in terms of developing sociability-based publicity in urban life in the contemporary capitalist system. The main hypothesis of the study is that traditional street markets are public spaces neglected within the daily practices of urban life and the potentials of these spaces in terms of sociability-based publicness are not adequately studied in the literature. Qualitative research method was used in the study based on field research conducted in a traditional street market in Eyüp district of Istanbul. In the study, various potentials based on espacially publicness and randomness, which can be examined under 5 main titles that are related to each other and which require the existence of each other, in traditional Street markets have been revealed: “social inclusion and diversity”, “different forms of communication”, “spatial temporariness, continuity and flexibility”, “alternative shopping” and “originality and social meaning”. In addition, it is another result that –as opposed to the dominant literature regarding the fact that the market places have damaged publicness in urban life by identifying only with “consumption”– the consumption/shopping forms that emerged in traditional street markets has different characteristics than the forms in the contemporary capitalist system. As a result, in the study, the connection of traditional street markets with publicness is associated with the different forms of sociability emerging in these spaces. Finally, it is argue that each of the street markets emerging and shaped in different geographies, different historical sections and different societies should be handled with its own originality and the potential of public space should be discussed within this framework in scientific studies on publicness and market places.

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