The Istanbul Airport, often celebrated as a symbol of national pride and global ambition, is also a space of profound contradictions. In her thought-provoking article published in Geoforum, Asst. Prof. Dr. Ayşe Serdar explores how the airport embodies what she terms a mode of re-conquest: a deliberate strategy to remake space and time in line with neoliberal ideals of progress and economic growth. Re-conquest, in this context, operates through the alliance of state and capital, shaping landscapes not only in terms of physical infrastructure but also through narratives of national strength and modernity.
Serdar’s study offers a critical lens on the dialectical production of precarious space and precarious time. While the airport is presented as a seamless triumph of engineering, the lived experiences of the workers tell a different story—one marked by instability, exploitation, and resistance. The research foregrounds the class dynamics inherent in such projects, showing how the state-capital nexus relies on the labor of a multi-ethnic workforce, often drawn from marginalized and precarious communities, to materialize grand visions of development.
Importantly, the study highlights how workers do not passively accept these conditions. Protests, strikes, and everyday forms of resistance emerge as counter-narratives to the spectacle of progress, revealing the fractures in the project’s glossy surface. Serdar’s analysis challenges us to reconsider the Istanbul Airport not merely as a technical achievement but as a political space, a site where contestations over land, labor, and national identity play out in complex and often contradictory ways.
By situating the Istanbul Airport within broader debates on urbanization, labor precarity, and neoliberalism, Serdar’s work contributes to our understanding of how monumental infrastructures shape, and are shaped by, both domination and struggle. Her research offers valuable insights for scholars, policymakers, and the public alike, calling for a more critical engagement with the forces that mold our urban futures.