Ebook: Salvaging Buildings: Reclaiming a Livelihood from the Excesses of Istanbul's Mass Urbanization

Istanbul's demolition waste is, to a great extent, managed by çıkmacıs (reclaimers), who salvage condemned buildings for raw materials and architectural elements. They have operated in a grey zone since the informal urbanization identified by gecekondus, and they adapt to changing conditions of neoliberal transformation. In this book, Erdogan Onur Ceritoglu examines their livelihood and trade network based on a long-term ethnographic and architectural study. In the context of waste agency, he discusses the shared corporeality between çıkmacıs and discarded demolition materials, such as toxic materials, and the reuse of second-hand building elements.