Maysa Albert

Doctoral Project

Seen from the Edge: Istanbul’s Last 100 Years from the Perspective of Its Peripheries

The starting point of this project is the argument that the relationship between centers and peripheries needs to be rethought and retheorized.

It is an investigation of urban patterns and elements seen from a historical perspective that aims to investigate discursive changes in different parameters of three peripheries of Istanbul - Alibeyköy, Beykoz, and the city walls - linking the social to the physical in a global city, both to detect spatial and discursive changes and retell Istanbul’s history through an analytical perspective of its peripheries, telling from its edges how the city reflects power relations.
While examining criteria such as accessibility, economic flows, infrastructure, and population structure, this study seeks to demonstrate that the hybridity that emerges from urban public space typically blurs the distinction between center and periphery, revealing the historical fluidity of the boundaries on which urban design concepts are based.
The results of this project will be shown in the form of customized, web-based maps with the ability to perform fundamental statistical analysis as well as story maps, utilizing geography as a means of both organizing and presenting information that will tell the stories, events, issues, trends, and patterns of said peripheries as a collection of geodata accessible 24/7.

Curriculum Vitae

Born in Ilhabela, Brazil.

2014-2021 Studies of Near and Middle Eastern Studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. Master Thesis: “The Quarter of Cibali and the Earthquake of 1894 in Istanbul: Topography and its Rearrangement.”

2019-2021: Student Assistant in Subproject B05 “The Double Bond of Lovers: Social and Spiritual Regimes of Dervishes in Istanbul during the Long Nineteenth Century” - DFG CRC 1369 “Cultures of Vigilance,”

2021-2022: Research Assistant (Turkish Studies) at the Institute of Near and Middle Eastern Studies at LMU Munich,

2021-2023: Contributor to the DFG Project “Orient-Digital” at the Bavarian State Library in Munich.

Since 2021: Study of History at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. Since 2022: Research Fellow (Turkish Studies) at the Institute of Near and Middle Eastern Studies at LMU Munich.

Courses Taught

2022/23: Isfahan und Istanbul im 17. Jahrhundert, research seminar of the MA Near and Middle Eastern Studies taught with Dr. phil. Sarah Kiyanrad

2022/23: Isfahan und Istanbul im 17. Jahrhundert, practical course of the MA Near and Middle Eastern Studies taught with Dr. phil. Sarah Kiyanrad

2022/23: History of Medicine in the Middle East, practical course of the BA Near and Middle Eastern Studies

2022: Regimes of Territoriality and Temporality in the Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Middle East, practical course of the MA Near and Middle Eastern Studies

2022: Uneven Times: A History of Turkey in the 20th and 21st Centuries, practical course of the BA Near and Middle Eastern Studies

2021/22: Indigeneity and Peasantry, practical course of the BA Near and Middle Eastern Studies